My heart sank as I saw news coverage telling us that on Thursday night, June 18th, the George Washington statue not far from the neighborhood where I grew up had been toppled by protestors. About 200 unidentified demonstrators accomplished the deed. To add to the indignity, crude, angry words were sprayed on the statue. They had wrapped an American flag around Washington’s head and set it on fire. On June 14th about 15 people had taken a rope and an ax to accomplish toppling the statue of Thomas Jefferson on the front steps of Jefferson High School.

I can understand the anger at honoring the Confederate flag and leaders of the Confederate army. They symbolize the desire to keep slavery alive. But I’ve always looked up to our “Founding Fathers.” The statue-toppling events led me to want to know more about Washington’s and Jefferson’s feelings toward slavery. Was my admiration on shaky ground? The world Washington and Jefferson were born into was already firmly established in slavery. Would it have been possible for them to emancipate all their slaves? How did they treat their slaves?

George Washington and Slavery

I gleaned some information about Washington’s involvement in slavery from an article called “10 Facts About Washington & Slavery” on the mountvernon.org website. First of all, Washington’s father died in 1743, when George was 11 years old, and left George 280 acres and ten slaves. Washington purchased seven more slaves in 1755 (at about age 23). Washington’s marriage to Martha Custis in 1759 added 84 slaves. Martha had inherited a third of her husband’s estate when he died in 1757. The slaves she inherited were referred to as “dower slaves.” By law they could not be freed. They had to be handed down.

Washington was born in 1732 and died in 1799. In 1723 Virginia passed a law prohibiting the emancipation of slaves, except for slaves who performed “meritorious service” approved by the governor and council as deserving freedom. Any other slaves freed had to be put up for sale. According to an article regarding Virginia slavery on a website called ouramericanrevolution.org, freed slaves were considered a problem because they were suspected of stealing and encouraging other slaves to escape or revolt. Old or disabled slaves would have to be supported by the Church of England.  In 1782 another law was passed allowing slave owners to free their slaves at will. However, they must pay living expenses for any that were over age 45, any males under age 21, and any females under age 18.

Slaves Rebel

Slaves sometimes tried to run away or to rebel by faking sickness, working slowly, doing work poorly, losing or damaging items needed for work, stealing, starting fires, or sabotaging crops. Slave owners used punishment. In later years, Washington asked overseers to use “encouragement and rewards” instead. He still allowed punishment if encouragement and rewards failed. There is one record of a whipping with a hickory stick.

There were 317 slaves on the Mount Vernon plantation when George Washington died. He had written a will requesting the emancipation of his slaves after Martha’s death, but 153 of them were “dower slaves” that could not be freed. Washington stipulated that his slaves too old or sick to work would be supported by his estate. Martha freed George’s slaves shortly after his death, since they would be anxious for her to die if they were to be freed upon her death.

Blacks & Whites Should Fight Side-by-Side

I found some other interesting points about Washington in a short video [3:40] called “George Washington and Slavery” posted by Fairfax Network. [Fairfax County is the county where Mount Vernon is located.] George Washington fought in the North during the Revolutionary War and saw an economy that did not require slavery, where people were used as property. He saw blacks and whites fighting side by side. He was also influenced by Marquis de Lafayette. Over half of Washington’s slaves were either too old or too young to work. That’s a lot of people to support without receiving any labor from them. In 1778 he asked his manager to stop selling slaves. He didn’t want to separate families.

Another short video gave insight. It was called “Why Did George Washington Have Slaves? #Ask Mount Vernon [4:56]. The task of emancipating all your slaves was very complicated. First of all, slavery was the basic way the economy of that time worked. You would have to figure out another way to support yourself. You would have to sacrifice a comfortable lifestyle. Washington began to see the evils of slavery after he bought several hundred slaves following the War. However, if you freed your slaves, you would have to support those who were too young or too old to work. He had lots of land, but not much cash. In order to finance emancipation, he considered renting or selling some of his land. But some of Martha’s dower slaves, who could not legally be freed, had intermarried with some of George’s, and he was opposed to separating families. When George willed that his slaves should be emancipated at Martha’s death, he solved the financial problem but not the family separation problem.

Here are some quotes of George Washington’s words from an article called “Washington’s Changing Views” on the mountvernon.org website:

• 1786: “It is much against my inclination . . . to hurt the feelings of those unhappy people by a separation of man and wife, or of families.”
• 1786: “I never mean (unless some particular circumstances should compel me to it) to possess another slave by purchase: it being among my first wishes to see some plan adopted by the legislature by which slavery in the Country may be abolished by slow, sure, & imperceptible degrees.”
• 1786: “There is not a man living who wishes more sincerely than I do, to see a plan adopted for this abolition of [slavery] but there is only one proper and effectual mode by which it can be accomplished, & that is by Legislative authority.”
• 1794: “Were it not then, that I am principled against selling Negroes, as you would cattle in the market, I would not, in twelve months from this date, be possessed of one, as a slave.”
• 1799: “ . . . half the workers I keep on this Estate, would render me greater profit than I now derive from the whole . . .” [Washington switched to growing grain instead of tobacco. It required less workers, but he still had to feed and clothe all of his slaves.]

Thomas Jefferson and Slavery

Thomas Jefferson came into the world in 1743 and passed away in 1826. In addition the the Virginia law passed in 1782 allowing slave owners to free their slaves at will but requiring support of older and younger slaves, another law was passed in 1806.The new law added the requirement of paying the freed slaves’ transportation out of Virginia. (Freed slaves who stayed in Virginia more than a year could be re-enslaved.)

An article on the Poplar Forest website seemed to have the best summary of Jefferson’s relationship to slavery. Poplar Forest was Jefferson’s personal retreat and is now a tourist attraction. It is located on the plantation inherited from his father-in-law, 27 miles away from his own plantation, where Monticello was built.

Thomas Jefferson was born into a world where slavery had been prominent for 75 years. He grew up on a plantation with slaves. In adult life he owned almost 200 slaves. At one point, Jefferson thought blacks were inferior to other races by nature, but later he realized that enslavement had affected their abilities. When serving in the Virginia Legislature as a young man, his attempt to pass laws allowing the citizens of Virginia to free their slaves failed. His first draft of the Declaration of Independence contained strong words in opposition to the importation of slaves from across the ocean. [Another source said he was advised that if the abolition of slavery were included in the Declaration of Independence, the colonies would not unite to fight the British.] When he was President, he signed a bill to outlaw the transatlantic  slave trade. Jefferson had fears of financial ruin if slaves were freed and fears of possible harm at the hands of slaves who had suffered the hardships of enslavement. In later life, he supported freeing slaves and returning them to Africa.

John Meacham

I listened to a short talk by a man named John Meacham who seemed quite knowledgeable about Thomas Jefferson. The Youtube video was called “Web extra: Thomas Jefferson and slavery (CBS News – Dec. 1, 2012)”. Meacham said that Jefferson gave up on fighting slavery. He had argued a case using the Natural Law (all men are created equal) argument and lost the case. He tried to pass a phased emancipation bill in the Virginia House of Burgesses, but it failed. Meacham said that Jefferson was a philosopher, but he was also a realist.

The monticello.org website had an article entitled “How did Jefferson treat the people enslaved at Monticello?  In 1792, Jefferson wrote to his overseer Manoah Clarkson: “My first wish is that the laborers may be well treated.” [Like George Washington] Jefferson wanted to motivate with rewards, rather than threatening with the whip, except as a last resort. Unfortunately, he was unsuccessful in decreasing violence. He was often away from the plantation, and his overseers couldn’t seem to keep up productivity without relying on violence.

One source said that Jefferson could not have afforded to free his slaves. An article called “Presidential Debt: Jefferson’s Debt Troubles” on the consumercredit.com website validated that fact. The website stated that when he died, Jefferson’s debts were higher than his assets, despite some contributions by the public. Several factors contributed to his debts, but one factor was that he lived above his means.

On the Poplar Forest website, I found these statements by Thomas Jefferson:

• 1782 – From Notes on the State of Virginia: “Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep forever . . .”
• August 30, 1791 – To Benjamin Banneker [black almanac author]: “Nobody wishes more than I do to see such proofs as you exhibit, that nature has given our black brethren, talents equal to those of other colors of men, and that the appearance of a want of them is owing merely to the degraded condition of their existence.”
• September, 1814 – To Thomas Cooper [Political Philosopher]: “There is nothing I would not sacrifice to a practicable plan of abolishing of this moral and political depravity.”

What about Thomas Jefferson’s relationship with a female slave?

Sally Hemings was a mulatto slave said to have been inherited from Jefferson’s father-in-law. While serving as Minister to France as a 44-year-old widower, Jefferson sent for his nine-year-old daughter “Polly,” accompanied by his 14-year-old slave Sally. After much research, I decided that I could not take some of the information I found at face value. The Monticello Foundation has taken  results from DNA tests that show one son but not the other was probably from someone in the Jefferson line and unsubstantiated information from an unproven “son” of Jefferson named Madison who was born of Sally Hemings and has run with it. They have decided to conclude that Jefferson was the father of all six of the children born to Sally.

I discovered a pbs.org article entitled “Is It True? A Primer on Jefferson DNA.” The top of the page has this explanation: “This is a dissenting memo from John H. Work, a Jefferson descendent and a past president of the Monticello Association.” The memo explains that the testing had to be done through males, looking for consistencies in the Y chromosomes. (Females have 2 “X” chromosomes, and males have an “X” and a “Y”.) Jefferson had no sons who lived to adulthood to have sons, so they used five male descendents of two sons of Jefferson’s father’s brother. They compared their Y chromosomes with those of male descendents of Sally Hemings. They also tested DNA from some of Monticello’s neighbors.

There was a probable match between the Jefferson line and Sally’s youngest son, Eston. There was no match between the Jefferson line and Sally’s [professed] first-born son, Thomas Woodson.  There were eight Jeffersons who could have fathered Sally’s youngest son, Eston. The eight possible fathers are: Thomas Jefferson, Thomas’ brother Randolf, Randolf’s five sons, and a cousin named George. (Randolf’s five sons were in their teens or early 20s during the time Sally Hemings was bearing children.) The grave of William Hennings, son of one of Sally’s sons, Madison, has been discovered in Kansas. However, the Madison Hemings family members made a decision not to pursue DNA testing.

Some historians have relied on a series of 1863 newspaper interviews with Sally’s son Madison. There are cases wherein people fabricate information for an interview for monetary gain or notoriety. Without corroboration, it’s difficult to know how much we can rely on the information given. I found the article called “Madison Hemings Interview” on the tjheritage.com website. The pages are introduced by saying: “This was a series of articles by S.F. Wetmore in the Pike County (Ohio) Republican, a weekly newspaper in Waverly, Ohio. Historians did not become aware of the articles until the mid-1950s.” It is copies of a typescript that was done in the year 2000 of the article called “Life Among the Lowly.” Apparently the original newspaper articles had become difficult to read. The website has underlined certain words or dates that were changed when the article was used as material in a book by Annette Gordon-Reed entitled, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American Controversy (1997). Hmmm. Is it okay to change words and dates after the fact?

Here is a part of Madison Hemings’ account given in the newspaper interview: “About the time of the appointment and before he [Jefferson]was ready to leave the country his wife died, and as soon after his interment as he could attend to and arrange his domestic affairs in accordance with the changed circumstance of his family in consequence of this misfortune (I think not more than three weeks after) he left for France, taking his eldest daughter with him . . .”  From britannica.com I found that Martha Jefferson died on September 6, 1782. It says, “Thomas went into seclusion for weeks after his wife’s death.  The Library of Congress information (loc.gov “Thomas Jefferson 1743 to 1827) states that Jefferson was appointed to go to Europe to negotiate a peace treaty with Britain in November of 1782, two months after his wife’s death. On December 27, 1782, he went to Philadelphia to depart for France but never went, due to bad weather. He sailed for Europe with his 12-year-old daughter “Patsy” on July 5, 1784, to serve as Minister to France. That means Jefferson left for France with his oldest daughter about two years after his wife’s death—not about three weeks.

Another passage says “. . . in France she [Sally] was free, while if she returned to Virginia she would be re-enslaved. So she refused to return with him [Jefferson]. To induce her to do so he promised her extraordinary privileges and made a solemn pledge that her children should be freed at the age of twenty-one years.” I noticed that in the interviews Madison Hemings refers to Jefferson’s daughters as Martha and Maria, but I had read that the family called them “Patsy” and “Polly.” I don’t know if that’s significant. Also, sometimes Madison referred to Jefferson as “Mr. Jefferson” and sometimes “my father.”

The Myth of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings

After noting this previous evidence regarding the possibility of Jefferson’s fatherhood of Sally Hemings’ children, I found an extremely interesting and pertinent article at wsj.com (Wall Street Journal), entitled “The Myth of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings.” It was written on July 11, 2012 by Robert F. Turner, a University of Virginia professor, as well as editor of the book entitled The Jefferson-Hemings Controversy: Report of the Scholars Commission (2011). The wsj.com article makes this statement: “Eston’s descendants repeatedly acknowledged—before and after the DNA tests—that as children they were told they were not descendants of Thomas Jefferson but rather of an uncle.” An oral history written in 1847 recounted the fact that Jefferson’s younger brother Randolph would join the black people, play his fiddle, and dance halfway through the night. Letters show that Randolph was invited to Monticello under two weeks prior to the time Eston was probably conceived. The article further states that the story about Thomas Jefferson and Sally’s alleged relationship began with a story of September, 1802, saying that the name of Sally’s oldest son was “Tom.” Shortly after Jefferson’s death, Thomas Woodson, a former slave, asserted that he was Jefferson’s son. The DNA tests finally proved to his descendents that it was a false claim. One claim used to attempt to prove the relationship of Jefferson and Sally was that her children were given “ ‘extraordinary privileges’ ”. The truth is, Jefferson freed all except two of Sally’s mother’s sons and grandsons. Sally’s sons did not receive any property, homes, tools, or money, as some of the others who were freed did. Furthermore, when Jefferson failed to give notorious journalist James Thomson Callender the postmaster appointment he wanted, Callender pledged vengeance. He authored a whole series of articles accusing Jefferson of being a French agent and an atheist and of taking a slave girl as a “concubine” while in Paris. Even Jefferson’s political rivals refused to utilize these attacks, knowing Jefferson as a man of strong character. Another article by Robert F. Turner called “Commentary: The Sally Hemings Myth” on the dailyprogress.com website states that evidence suggests that while in Paris Sally lived in a Catholic convent school where Jefferson’s daughters were. Sally is just listed along with other house-servants Jefferson’s daughter and her husband were invited to utilize while Jefferson was in Washington.

“Likely and May Have Been”

There is a smithsonianmag.com article from July 5, 2017, called “Sally Hemings Gets Her Own Room at Monticello.” Underneath the title it says, “A renovation at Thomas Jefferson’s estate will give the slave he likely fathered at least six children with a display in what may have been her quarters.” Did you notice the words “likely” and “may have been”? I hope they include those words when giving tours at Jefferson’s home at Monticello. And I hope the tourists take note of them. Even the word “likely” is inaccurate. If DNA evidence did indeed prove that Sally’s oldest son could not have been in the Jefferson line, then Thomas Jefferson could not possibly have fathered all of Sally’s children, if any.  A little further down in the article you will find these words: “As Thomas Foster, history professor at De Paul University points out in the Huffington Post, the room wasn’t necessarily Hemings’ living quarters. Jefferson’s grandson was a notoriously unreliable source of information, and there is no direct archaeological or documentary evidence tying Hemings to the room in the south wing.”

In my mind, the evidence we have at this time is pretty convincing that Thomas Jefferson was not the father of any of Sally Hemings’ children. Yet there are some who may never agree with that. Shannon LaNier, host of a morning talk show in Houston, confidently declares himself to be a descendant of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, through Madison Hemings. According to the mikemcguff.com website, he has co-written a book called Jefferson’s Children: The Story of One American Family (2000), for grades 3 to 7. The book apparently states the Sally Hemings – Thomas Jefferson family line as fact. In a court of law, paternity would have to be established by blood or DNA, not by oral history.

It appears unlikely that Thomas Jefferson really fathered any of Sally Hemings’ children. However, I did run across an artfully written 4,000-word letter Jefferson wrote in 1786 to an Italian woman named Maria Hadfield Conway whom he met in Paris, apparently well known as the “Heart and Head Letter.” Maria was a talented artist and musician. Something I read gave me the impression that her husband was an egotistical snob who was unfaithful—not that it excuses the relationship with Jefferson. There is no evidence of a sexual relationship. I guess he was hoping she might someday be a widow.

That situation has little to do with what he contributed to the government of our country. I don’t think we could discount the authenticity of his faith, either. It only proves his humanity. Even King David fell into temptation and a season of disobedience. Yet God had considered David “a man after his own heart.” (I Samuel 13:14 [KJV]) Sometimes Jefferson reluctantly accepted a political position because it was a sacrifice that took him away from taking care of his plantation and personal affairs. A few months after he arrived in Paris to serve as Minister of France, he received a letter from the doctor of his 2 ½ -year-old daughter, hand delivered by Lafayette, informing him that she had died of whooping cough. That must have been very difficult. If you viewed all of Jefferson’s political involvements and the events of his life listed in the article called “Thomas Jefferson Papers Timeline” on the Library of Congress website, you would probably be amazed.

One thing I know for sure—Slavery was a very ugly chapter in American history. All of this information about slavery made me wonder just how slavery came to have such a stronghold in America. I found an article that provided a good overview on the history.com website, entitled “Slavery: Timeless, Figures, and Abolition.” I will paraphrase and summarize it.

The Origin and Progression of Slavery In America

Many believe that the beginning of slavery in America was in 1619 [the year before the Puritans arrived in Massachusetts] when a “privateer” called The White Lion unloaded 20 African slaves in Jamestown, Virginia. [I had heard of “privateers” but wasn’t sure of the exact definition. It is a privately owned armed vessel commissioned by a government to attack enemy ships—usually ships for commerce.] The slaves had been seized from a Portuguese slave ship. [According to a massmoments.org article called “First Slaves Arrive in Massachusetts,” in 1638 a ship named Desire brought black slaves from the West Indies to Massachusetts.]

NOTE: There has been an attempt to define 1619 as the founding of America, rather than when the Declaration of Independence was adopted on July 4, 1776. It’s called “The 1619 Project,” and it has of course been discredited by many historians. This project has gone so far as to say that Americans fought the Revolutionary War to defend slavery. This makes no sense, since the British were shipping the slaves.

• In the 1600s North American settlers found Africans to be a cheaper alternative to indentured servants. (Indentured servants signed a contract to work a specified number of years, in exchange for transportation to Virginia and the provision of food, clothing, and shelter at their destination.)
• In the 1600s and 1700s the African slaves labored mostly on plantations growing tobacco, rice, and indigo [to make blue dye] from Maryland down to Virginia.
• In the U.S. Constitution written after the Revolutionary War, the right to repossess a “person held to service or labor” was guaranteed.
• In the late 1700s soil used to grow tobacco was becoming worn out. With England’s textile industry becoming mechanized, American cotton grown in the South was in high demand. The removal of the seeds from the cotton by hand had limited the output, but in 1793 Eli Whitney speeded the process by inventing the cotton gin. The South then needed slaves to harvest cotton, rather than tobacco.
• The northern states abolished slavery between 1774 and 1804. In 1808 the U.S. Congress made the African slave trade illegal, but the domestic slave trade grew to three times its size in the following 50 years. There were nearly 4 million African slaves by 1860. Slaves made up about a third of the population in the South. Slaves were made dependent by means of restrictions on education, behavior, and movement. Masters often used female slave sexually, and slaves who rebelled were cruelly punished.  Hierarchies ranging from house staff and skilled workers to field hands developed. Families were sometimes separated when family members were sold or removed.

The slaves sometimes led small rebellions. In 1831 Nat Turner led about 75 black men to murder 55 whites within two days, terrifying slaveholders. Armed local white and the state militia stopped them. Fear of other rebellions caused some states to make further restrictions. This served to spur the abolitionist movement in the North.

In the 1780s freed blacks and white supporters began to help slaves escape via the “Underground Railroad,” a network of safe houses. It was widely used in the 1830s. It is estimated that as many as 40,000 to 100,000 may have attained freedom.

In 1820 the Missouri Compromise helped settle divisions temporarily. It was an agreement to allow Missouri to enter the union as a free state but designated all western territories to the north of the southern border of Missouri as slave free.

To resolve the slavery controversy in territories acquired during the Mexican-American War, in 1854 the Kansas-Nebraska Act gave new territories sovereignty to decide whether to be a slave or free territory. This caused a bloody battle in the new state of Kansas.

A master who took his slave into free territory led to the Dred Scott decision in the Supreme Court of 1857, which determined that all territories would allow slavery.

In 1859 abolitionist John Brown [a white man] and 22 other men, including 5 black men, raided and occupied a federal arsenal in Harper’s Ferry, Virginia. Ten people died, and Brown was hung. The North looked on Brown as a hero, while the South looked on him as a mass murderer.

Abraham Lincoln

Three months after Abraham Lincoln’s election, seven states in the South seceded to become the Confederate States of America. Four more states followed suit after the Civil War began in 1861. The Union Army’s first goal was to keep the states united as one nation, and later to abolish slavery. On January 1, 1863, Lincoln issued the official Emancipation Proclamation. [However, the Confederate leader did not surrender until April 9, 1865.]

I was quite surprised to discover that slavery had begun so early on in the New England colonies. It seemed strange to me that the Puritans would accept the practice of slavery. But an article called “New England Colonies’ Use of Slavery” on the nationalgeographic.com website helped me to understand it a little more.

Beginnings of Slavery Among the Puritans

Slavery was a part of life in England, from which the Pilgrims came. Slavery had been a part of European practices for over a hundred years. [The Puritans arrived at Plymouth Rock in Massachusetts (New England in the North) seeking religious liberty. The previous settlers in Jamestown, Virginia (the South), came for financial reasons.]

Originally the New England colonies were more focused on indentured servants—people who served voluntarily to work off debts. They normally signed a contract in effect for four to seven years.

Another kind of slave trade came into being in early New England, in a more limited way. Local Native Americans were sometimes captured and shipped to the West Indies.

There was a much greater need for the African slaves in the southern colonies, where they were needed to labor on plantations. In New England, it was more common for only one or two slaves to be utilized for a household, a business, or for a small farm. Due to the varied economy in New England, slaves often learned certain skills and crafts.

Originally, New England thought of the African slaves as being similar to the European indentured servants, but in 1641 that changed. The Massachusetts Bay colony wrote some laws that gave the slaves less rights than the indentured servants.

A wikipedia.com article entitled “History of slavery in Massachusetts” explains the “Body of Liberties” document written in 1641. The document refers to “strangers,” which came to be applied to Africans and Native Americans. The “strangers” concept came from Leviticus 25:39-55. The document legitimized four sources of slavery: (1) captives from just wars; (2)people who sold themselves into slavery; (3) people who were purchased from somewhere else; (4) people who were sentenced to slavery by authority of the government. In 1670, 1680, and 1703, amendments were made that restricted the lives of slaves further.

Going back to the National Geographic article, the government of the Rhode Island colony attempted to enforce laws that would have extended the rights of indentured servants to slaves and would have freed them after serving ten years. Although their attempt failed, this move was a precursor of the general move away from slavery in the North.

What Now?

Now I know much more about slavery than when I started. I know I learned some of these things in school, but my mind needed refreshing. Some things probably weren’t discussed, and some things hadn’t been discovered or researched yet. Now I have a better understanding about what a long struggle it was to rid the country of slavery and what a dismal life it was being a slave. They lived in crowded dwellings and were forced to work hard. Sometimes they were beaten. Families sometimes suffered painful separation. Female slaves were sometimes sexually abused. No wonder the African slaves developed spiritual songs to help comfort them in their misery. They must have often wished that the “sweet chariot” would “swing low” and carry them home.

A few nights ago I heard a lead pastor interviewing a black pastor on his staff on TV. The lead pastor allowed the black pastor to share what it had been like being black in today’s society. He shared a similar story to others I’ve heard, of being trained what to do if stopped by the police. He was told to keep his hands on the wheel, not make sudden moves, and speak sweetly to the police officer. I had wondered if the other stories I’d heard were unusual, but it seems they are not. After listening to his staff pastor for a while, the lead pastor suddenly bowed his head and began to weep. I guess that interview affected me deeply. The next morning I was shopping at the grocery store, and I came upon a young black man stocking shelves. Unexpectedly, I felt choked up, as though tears would flow if I allowed it. I wondered if he had ever had to worry about getting stopped at night or if he had ever been passed over for a job promotion. I stifled my tears, since I was wearing a mask to prevent coronavirus. Tears and a runny nose would have been a very unpleasant combination with a mask.

United We Stand…Divided We Fall

Somehow we need to find the way forward to uniting our country. The peaceful protests have gotten our attention to help us realize that we cannot tolerate unjust treatment by police. We must find ways to root out police who are prejudiced. But I’m sure there are Marxists and anarchists stirring up trouble. I saw a car in protest footage that had been spray-painted with the words “Kill Capitalism.” The takeover of a Seattle district as “autonomous” has the smell of anarchy. The vandalism, looting, fires, and projectiles aimed at police must be stopped. They are apparently usually caused by the fringe groups, rather than the peaceful protest participants. Protests that interfere with traffic and pedestrians are not really legal without a permit. They infringe on the rights of others.

In order for our country to come together, we must get rid of any prejudice that still lingers on, even after a Civil War and the Civil Rights Riots of the 60s. Those who have been wronged must continue to peacefully stand up against injustice, when needed, and Christians must support acceptance of all races as equal. Isaiah 1:17 says, “Learn to do well. Seek justice. Relieve the oppressed. Defend the fatherless. Plead for the widow.” [World English Bible] However, the Marxist idea of “collective guilt,” which they apply to slavery, is not Biblical. Ezekiel 18:20 says, “The soul who sins, he shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son.”[World English Bible]

​Bitterness and anger from past injustices will help to keep our country divided. It is good to remember that thousands of white soldiers gave their very lives to free black Americans. We must be grateful for the right to peacefully protest. We can remember the protest in Tiananmen Square in China in 1989, where thousands of peaceful protestors had gathered. It is estimated that hundreds or thousands were massacred by the government’s troops, armed with assault rifles and tanks. As a free nation, we must ask God to help us unite.

I will close with a beautiful story. A Portland college student was singing the National Anthem outdoors for a taping for her virtual graduation. A black singer trained in opera happened by and surprised her by joining in. Click on the video below to see it happen.

(Videos suggested at the end of this video not necessarily endorsed by this website)