When I conduct teacher or student workshops around the American founding, I always lead with the same question: When you hear the words “Founding Fathers,” what are some thoughts that come to mind?
“Old white men in wigs and fancy clothes” is a popular response. The names George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Benjamin Franklin will come up. Conversation turns to the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the American Revolution.
Many times, the audience will note that the Founding Founders owned slaves or point out that women are rarely acknowledged as founders. They recognize the founders as imperfect people, however, they also acquiesce that they were also responsible for the creation of the United States of America.
I argue, however, as we celebrate our semiquincentennial, the concept of founders is narrow and needs to be expanded.
Constitutional historian R.B. Bernstein traces the origins of the phrase “Founding Fathers” to a 1916 speech by then-Sen. William Harding (who would later become the 29th president), where the term encompassed a broad category of the men who wrote the Declaration of Independence, our country’s founding covenant.
Washington, Franklin, Jefferson, John Adams, Alexander Hamilton, and James Monroe are the quintessential founders by this definition, which also extends to lesser known signers of the Declaration of Independence, Revolutionary soldiers, and delegates at the Second Continental Congress of 1776 and Constitutional Convention of 1787.
Yet, if we restrict our definition to those founders, we ignore the contributions of women, Native Americans, the poor, and Black people who were excluded from these gatherings by racism, sexism, and classism.
In my workshops, I sometimes get attendees acknowledging Black people as founders for their contributions building the nation as slaves and fighting in the American Revolution. Black people did help build and fight for the developing nation; however, the concept of them as founders is still too narrow for their contributions. The idea limits Black founders’ agency, intellectualism, and freedom. To understand Black founders is to understand their purpose of establishing a separate nation within a nation.
Borrowing from the ideas of historians Richard S. Newman and Lerone Bennett Jr., I propose a more expansive definition of Black founders: African and African Americans who lived in the United States during the 18th and 19th century, built Black institutions within the country, fought for universal emancipation, and spurred dialogue over the meaning of Black identity. These founders worked to establish a separate and safe country for Black people, both free and enslaved, within the racial and racist structures of the United States.
Black Revolutionary soldiers, who reshaped the meaning of Black identity, are some of the earliest examples of Black founders. In a context where many of their fellow soldiers believed that Black people were racially inferior and did not have the mental capacity to lead and fight with bravery, their presence and actions were a political statement. Most formerly enslaved people who joined the Continental Army were relegated to menial duties. Yet, Black Revolutionary soldiers fought and were essential in many battles, held leadership positions, and served as spies for the Continental Army. Prominent Black founders in the realm include James Armstead Lafayette, Prince Estabrook, and the 1st Rhode Island Regiment, which included Black and Native American soldiers.
Other founders established Black institutions to create spaces safe from racial oppression and support racial pride and progress. These institutions were economic, intellectual, political, and social. Examples of the institutions created and sustained by Black founders were the African Methodist Church (founded by Richard Allen and Absalom Jones); The Freedom’s Journal (edited by Samuel Cornish and John B. Russwurm); and the African Masonic Lodge (established by Prince Hall).
Black founders were activists who believed in Black emancipation, including those who were enslaved, Black abolitionists, and Black Revolutionary soldiers. Enslaved Black founders sought emancipation by escaping bondage, establishing maroon settlements, litigating through the court system, or violently rebelling to destroy the system of slavery. Many of the formerly enslaved who escaped to freedom then worked to strengthen abolitionist movements. Notable Black founders within this realm include Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, Elizabeth Freeman, and Henry Highland Garnet.
So why should we learn about these Black founders?
The history we learn about the Founding Fathers is incomplete. Centering “old white men with wigs” tells students that they were the only ones who had the disposition, intelligence, and vision to establish the new democratic nation. That assertion is simply not historically factual, given the fact that others were systemically excluded.
The Black founders’ narrative diversifies our understanding of Black history during and after the revolution. Lessons about that era typically focus primarily on slavery with peripheral mentions that there were Black freedmen. Students rarely, however, are asked to consider Black people as collaborators of U.S. democracy and nation building. Without this critical knowledge, students may infer that Black people were only benefactors of the system and insignificant to its growth and development.
The Black founder narrative reminds students that while white founders were fighting for liberation from an oppressive regime in the British, they simultaneously founded their own oppressive systems through the institution of slavery and other discriminatory laws aimed at women, Native Americans, and the poor. Black founders were instrumental in practicing the ideals of freedom that our white founders preached.
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