We Must Face -- And Unflinchingly-Confront, Our Shared History... If We Are Ever Going To Move Beyond It, Into MLK's "Dream".

Most of all -- I encourage you to read the whole article for yourself.

At issue (among some whyte board members, at least) of the historical society that curates the land and buildings once held by our Fourth President -- and the well-documented birthplace of our Constitution. . . a place quite literally built on the backs of the people he enslaved there -- is whether after two centuries, the Black lives. . . will have mattered. At all.

Quite sensibly, the descendants of those enslaved people simply seek a real voice -- in how the site is curated, with some board seats. Fair enough; and a simple thing to accommodate.

But last month the majority whyte / controlled board suddenly-altered its by-laws -- to effectively lock out the voices of the people whose ancestors literally both built and maintained it, lived and died there -- without compensation, for almost a century.

Here is the story, from NPR:

. . .Montpelier employees, as well as some board members, describe an environment rife with racism. White board members, they say, do not want to see power shared with descendants of the Black people who literally built the estate.

One board member, multiple people allege, described a Black man as having intimidated him with a "Frederick Douglass stare."

The fear of a takeover, Chew says with incredulity, was rooted in what the board saw as "angry Black folks."

Two calls to board chairman Gene Hickok and a call and a text to Montpelier President and CEO Roy Young went unanswered by the time of publication. . . .

Good lord, people. How can any rational person whyte, or of color. . . NOT come to the conclusion that all the people who built the place (through their descendants' voices) should finally be. . . heard? They were quite literally muzzled for over two centuries now.

Let -- at long last -- the dead finally now, speak. Speak their truths -- all through the voices of their descendants.

Damn.

नमस्ते