Jul 28, 2015

Ben & Jefferson: A Correspondence Reimagined

In the year 1791 an unusual correspondence took place. Benjamin Banneker, a free African American and an astronomer, mathematician, surveyor, almanac writer and farmer, wrote a letter to then Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson. Banneker’s letter was a plea for justice for African American slaves and a statement of racial equality and it challenged Jefferson’s suppositions of the inferiority of blacks.

In the new play, Ben and Jefferson: Two Thinkers and Tinkers, playwright Sheri Bailey imagines what might have happened had Banneker and Jefferson continued their conversations, discussing issues ranging from the nature of freedom to their shared interest of intellectual discovery and invention.

_{A portrait of Benjamin Banneker Image provided}_{by the Banneker-Douglass Museum and the Library of Congress.}

But it all started with the Banneker's letter, challenging Jefferson's written assertions that African Americans, whether they be slave or free, were inherently intellectually inferior to whites. Banneker wrote, in part:

"I suppose it is a truth too well attested to you, to need a proof here, that we are a race of Beings who have long laboured under the abuse and censure of the world, that we have long been looked upon with an eye of contempt, and that we have long been considered rather as brutish than human, and Scarcely capable of mental endowments.

Now, Sir, if this is founded in truth, I apprehend you will readily embrace every opportunity to eradicate that train of absurd and false ideas and oppinions which so generally prevail with respect to us, and that your Sentiments are concurrent with mine, which are that one universal Father hath given being to us all, and that he hath not only made us all of one flesh, but that he hath also without partiality afforded us all the same Sensations, and endued us all with the same faculties, and that however variable we may be in Society or religion, however diversified in Situation or colour, we are all of the Same Family, and Stand in the Same relation to him." -Benjamin Banneker, August 19, 1791

See the entire text of Banneker's letter here.

Much to Banneker's surprise, Thomas Jefferson replied days later:

"I thank you sincerely for your letter of the 19th instant and for the Almanac it contained. No body wishes more than I do to see such proofs as you exhibit, that nature has given to our black brethren, talents equal to those of the other colors of men, and that the appearance of a want of them is owing merely to the degraded condition of their existence, both in Africa & America. I can add with truth, that no body wishes more ardently to see a good system commended for raising the condition both of their body & mind to what it ought to be, as fast as the imbecility of their present existence, and other circumstances which cannot be neglected, will admit." -Thomas Jefferson, August 30, 1791

See the entire text of Jefferson's letter here.

_{A portrait Thomas Jefferson. Images provided by the Banneker-Douglass Museum and the Library of Congress.}

This Sunday, August 2nd at 4pm in the Lecture Hall of The American Theatre, JuneteenthVA-SB,Ink, proudly presents the second installment of the Local Theater Series with a staged reading of Ben & Jefferson; Two Thinkers and Tinkers. An afternoon of conversation between two men who helped shape our nation. Admission is free.

Join the conversation this Sunday afternoon as we entertain, challenge, and encourage you to share your own thoughts about one of our most famous founding fathers and his lesser known but equally remarkable counterpart.

Did you know? Some fun facts about Benjamin Banneker:

Was born November 9, 1731 in Ellicott's Mills, Maryland.
Had a grandmother named Molly Welsh, who was an English indentured servant.
Had a grandfather who was originally a slave of Molly Welsh, but whom she freed and then married.
Had a father who was an African native.
Wrote a dissertation on bees.
Designed and constructed what was probably the first wooden striking clock made in America.
Attended a Quaker school in Maryland with European American and African American children.
Was a "confirmed bachelor" who studied all night, slept all morning, and worked all afternoon.
Wrapped himself in a great cloak at night, lay under a pear tree, and meditated on the revolutions of the heavenly bodies.
Played the violin.
Was constantly in correspondence with other mathematicians in the United States, exchanging questions and seeking solutions.
From 1792 to 1802, wrote a series of annual almanacs that were widely read.
Was named to the commission that surveyed the land upon which Washington, D.C., was built.
Proposed that the cabinet have a Secretary of Peace as well as a Secretary of War.
Worked for free public education and an end to capital punishment.
Died on October 9, 1806, in Ellicott's Mills, Maryland.
In 1980, the U.S. Postal Service issued a postage stamp in his honor.

Learn more about Benjamin Banneker here.

banneker ltrs.jpg

_{Image of he letter sent from Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Banneker. Image provided by PBS.org.}