0:00:01.135,0:00:02.873
Not that long ago,

0:00:02.897,0:00:04.904
I received an invitation

0:00:04.928,0:00:10.003
to spend a few days at the historic[br]home of James Madison.

0:00:10.441,0:00:11.640
James Madison, of course,

0:00:11.664,0:00:14.418
was the fourth president[br]of the United States,

0:00:14.442,0:00:16.846
the father of the Constitution,

0:00:16.870,0:00:19.400
the architect of the Bill of Rights.

0:00:19.845,0:00:21.036
And as a historian,

0:00:21.060,0:00:24.630
I was really excited[br]to go to this historic site,

0:00:24.654,0:00:30.403
because I understand and appreciate[br]the power of place.

0:00:30.427,0:00:34.848
Now, Madison called his estate Montpelier.

0:00:34.872,0:00:37.570
And Montpelier is absolutely beautiful.

0:00:37.594,0:00:41.348
It's several thousand acres[br]of rolling hills,

0:00:41.372,0:00:43.476
farmland and forest,

0:00:43.500,0:00:48.269
with absolutely breathtaking views[br]of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

0:00:48.619,0:00:50.419
But it's a haunting beauty,

0:00:51.244,0:00:57.013
because Montpelier[br]was also a slave labor camp.

0:00:57.720,0:01:00.976
You see, James Madison enslaved[br]more than 100 people

0:01:01.000,0:01:03.212
over the course of his lifetime.

0:01:03.236,0:01:05.522
And he never freed a single soul,

0:01:05.546,0:01:07.226
not even upon his death.

0:01:07.546,0:01:11.537
The centerpiece of Montpelier[br]is Madison's mansion.

0:01:11.561,0:01:13.959
Now this is where James Madison grew up,

0:01:13.983,0:01:17.379
this is where he returned to[br]after his presidency,

0:01:17.403,0:01:19.466
this is where he eventually died.

0:01:19.490,0:01:23.418
And the centerpiece[br]of Madison's mansion is his library.

0:01:23.442,0:01:25.121
This room on the second floor,

0:01:25.145,0:01:30.506
where Madison conceived[br]and conceptualized the Bill of Rights.

0:01:30.530,0:01:32.649
When I visited for the first time,

0:01:32.673,0:01:36.196
the director of education,[br]Christian Cotz --

0:01:36.220,0:01:37.498
cool white dude --

0:01:37.522,0:01:39.557
(Laughter)

0:01:39.581,0:01:43.001
took me almost immediately to the library.

0:01:43.446,0:01:46.732
And it was amazing,[br]being able to stand in this place

0:01:46.756,0:01:51.084
where such an important moment[br]in American history happened.

0:01:51.909,0:01:53.683
But then after a little while there,

0:01:53.707,0:01:58.275
Christian actually took me downstairs[br]to the cellars of the mansion.

0:01:58.624,0:02:00.727
Now, in the cellars of the mansion,

0:02:00.751,0:02:05.189
that's where the enslaved[br]African Americans who managed the house

0:02:05.213,0:02:06.781
spent most of their time.

0:02:06.805,0:02:11.630
It's also where they were installing[br]a new exhibition on slavery in America.

0:02:11.964,0:02:13.800
And while we were there,

0:02:13.824,0:02:17.387
Christian instructed me to do something[br]I thought was a little bit strange.

0:02:17.411,0:02:18.729
He told me to take my hand

0:02:18.753,0:02:23.696
and place it on the brick walls[br]of the cellar, and to slide it along,

0:02:23.720,0:02:28.283
until I felt these impressions or ridges[br]in the face of the brick.

0:02:28.632,0:02:29.790
Now look,

0:02:29.814,0:02:33.030
I was going to be staying on site[br]on this former slave plantation

0:02:33.054,0:02:34.211
for a couple of days,

0:02:34.235,0:02:36.356
so I wasn't trying[br]to upset any white people.

0:02:36.380,0:02:37.593
(Laughter)

0:02:37.617,0:02:39.037
Because when this was over,

0:02:39.061,0:02:41.188
I wanted to make sure[br]that I could get out.

0:02:41.212,0:02:44.006
(Laughter)

0:02:44.030,0:02:48.226
But as I'm actually sliding my hand[br]along the cellar wall,

0:02:48.250,0:02:50.696
I couldn't help but think[br]about my daughters,

0:02:50.720,0:02:52.356
and my youngest one in particular,

0:02:52.380,0:02:54.919
who was only about two[br]or three years old at the time,

0:02:54.943,0:02:57.180
because every time[br]she hopped out of our car,

0:02:57.204,0:03:00.315
she would take her hand[br]and slide it along the outside,

0:03:00.339,0:03:02.355
which is absolutely disgusting.

0:03:02.379,0:03:03.736
And then --

0:03:03.760,0:03:06.387
and then, if I couldn't get[br]to her in time,

0:03:06.411,0:03:08.896
she would take her fingers[br]and pop them in her mouth,

0:03:08.920,0:03:10.744
which would drive me absolutely crazy.

0:03:10.768,0:03:14.188
So this is what I'm thinking about[br]while I'm supposed to be a historian.

0:03:14.212,0:03:15.513
(Laughter)

0:03:15.537,0:03:20.932
But then, I actually do feel[br]these impressions in the brick.

0:03:20.956,0:03:23.138
I feel these ridges in the brick.

0:03:23.162,0:03:26.797
And it takes a second[br]to realize what they are.

0:03:26.821,0:03:28.417
What they are

0:03:28.441,0:03:30.416
are tiny hand prints.

0:03:30.990,0:03:35.903
Because all of the bricks[br]at James Madison's estate

0:03:35.927,0:03:39.404
were made by the children[br]that he enslaved.

0:03:40.373,0:03:42.262
And that's when it hit me

0:03:42.286,0:03:43.873
that the library

0:03:43.897,0:03:49.817
in which James Madison conceives[br]and conceptualizes the Bill of Rights

0:03:49.841,0:03:52.461
rests on a foundation of bricks

0:03:53.206,0:03:56.236
made by the children that he enslaved.

0:03:57.173,0:04:00.235
And this is hard history.

0:04:01.164,0:04:03.918
It's hard history[br]because it's difficult to imagine

0:04:03.942,0:04:06.362
the kind of inhumanity

0:04:06.386,0:04:08.403
that leads one to enslave children

0:04:08.427,0:04:11.226
to make bricks for your comfort[br]and convenience.

0:04:11.582,0:04:12.749
It's hard history,

0:04:12.773,0:04:16.737
because it's hard to talk[br]about the violence of slavery,

0:04:16.761,0:04:19.193
the beatings, the whippings,[br]the kidnappings,

0:04:19.217,0:04:21.724
the forced family separations.

0:04:22.085,0:04:26.403
It's hard history because it's hard[br]to teach white supremacy,

0:04:26.427,0:04:29.577
which is the ideology[br]that justified slavery.

0:04:30.157,0:04:33.871
And so rather than confront hard history,

0:04:33.895,0:04:36.210
we tend to avoid it.

0:04:37.385,0:04:41.780
Now, sometimes that means[br]just making stuff up.

0:04:42.790,0:04:45.606
I can't tell you how many times[br]I've heard people say

0:04:45.630,0:04:49.359
that "states' rights" was the primary[br]cause of the Civil War.

0:04:50.058,0:04:51.884
That would actually come as a surprise

0:04:51.908,0:04:53.955
to the people who fought in the Civil War.

0:04:53.979,0:04:55.312
(Laughter)

0:04:55.336,0:05:00.404
Sometimes, we try[br]to rationalize hard history.

0:05:01.095,0:05:02.722
When people visit Montpelier --

0:05:02.746,0:05:05.452
and by "people," in this instance[br]I mean white people --

0:05:05.476,0:05:06.790
when they visit Montpelier

0:05:06.814,0:05:10.690
and learn about Madison enslaving people,

0:05:10.714,0:05:12.680
they often ask,

0:05:12.704,0:05:14.704
"But wasn't he a good master?"

0:05:15.982,0:05:17.132
A "good master?"

0:05:17.871,0:05:20.292
There is no such thing as a good master.

0:05:20.316,0:05:23.151
There is only worse and worser.

0:05:24.707,0:05:26.453
And sometimes,

0:05:26.477,0:05:29.444
we just pretend the past didn't happen.

0:05:30.104,0:05:32.676
I can't tell you how many times[br]I've heard people say,

0:05:32.700,0:05:37.288
"It's hard to imagine slavery[br]existing outside of the plantation South."

0:05:37.312,0:05:38.462
No, it ain't.

0:05:38.963,0:05:41.471
Slavery existed in every American colony,

0:05:41.495,0:05:44.363
slavery existed in my home[br]state of New York

0:05:44.387,0:05:47.835
for 50 years after[br]the American Revolution.

0:05:48.653,0:05:50.176
So why do we do this?

0:05:50.200,0:05:53.763
Why do we avoid confronting hard history?

0:05:54.232,0:05:56.887
Literary performer[br]and educator Regie Gibson

0:05:56.911,0:05:59.283
had the truth of it when he said

0:05:59.307,0:06:05.081
that our problem as Americans[br]is we actually hate history.

0:06:05.692,0:06:07.510
What we love

0:06:07.534,0:06:08.874
is nostalgia.

0:06:09.994,0:06:11.144
Nostalgia.

0:06:11.629,0:06:13.946
We love stories about the past

0:06:13.970,0:06:17.375
that make us feel comfortable[br]about the present.

0:06:18.347,0:06:20.434
But we can't keep doing this.

0:06:20.871,0:06:23.372
George Santayana, the Spanish[br]writer and philosopher,

0:06:23.396,0:06:26.688
said that those who cannot[br]remember the past

0:06:26.712,0:06:29.037
are condemned to repeat it.

0:06:29.379,0:06:33.283
Now as a historian, I spend a lot of time[br]thinking about this very statement,

0:06:33.307,0:06:36.855
and in a sense,[br]it applies to us in America.

0:06:37.165,0:06:38.845
But in a way, it doesn't.

0:06:39.260,0:06:41.942
Because, inherent in this statement,

0:06:41.966,0:06:44.906
is the notion that at some point,

0:06:44.930,0:06:47.112
we stopped doing the things

0:06:47.136,0:06:50.532
that have created inequality[br]in the first place.

0:06:51.199,0:06:53.421
And a harsh reality is,

0:06:53.445,0:06:54.595
we haven't.

0:06:55.498,0:06:58.307
Consider the racial wealth gap.

0:06:59.252,0:07:03.506
Wealth is generated by accumulating[br]resources in one generation,

0:07:03.530,0:07:07.148
and transferring them[br]to subsequent generations.

0:07:07.649,0:07:11.376
Median white household wealth

0:07:11.400,0:07:14.465
is 147,000 dollars.

0:07:15.307,0:07:18.228
Median Black household wealth

0:07:19.419,0:07:21.990
is four thousand dollars.

0:07:22.506,0:07:25.641
How do you explain this growing gap?

0:07:26.776,0:07:27.926
Hard history.

0:07:28.665,0:07:32.380
My great-great-grandfather[br]was born enslaved

0:07:32.404,0:07:35.696
in Jasper County, Georgia, in the 1850s.

0:07:36.022,0:07:40.076
While enslaved, he was never allowed[br]to accumulate anything,

0:07:40.100,0:07:41.950
and he was emancipated with nothing.

0:07:41.974,0:07:45.878
He was never compensated[br]for the bricks that he made.

0:07:46.363,0:07:51.466
My great-grandfather was also born[br]in Jasper County, Georgia, in the 1870s,

0:07:51.490,0:07:54.985
and he actually managed[br]to accumulate a fair bit of land.

0:07:55.548,0:07:59.937
But then, in nineteen-teens,[br]Jim Crow took that land from him.

0:08:00.501,0:08:02.635
And then Jim Crow took his life.

0:08:03.525,0:08:05.966
My grandfather, Leonard Jeffries Senior,

0:08:05.990,0:08:07.394
was born in Georgia,

0:08:07.418,0:08:09.378
but there was nothing left for him there,

0:08:09.402,0:08:12.419
so he actually grew up[br]in Newark, New Jersey.

0:08:12.896,0:08:16.300
And he spent most of his life[br]working as a custodian.

0:08:17.428,0:08:21.887
Job discrimination,[br]segregated education and redlining

0:08:21.911,0:08:25.974
kept him from ever breaking[br]into the middle class.

0:08:26.553,0:08:29.656
And so when he passed away[br]in the early 1990s,

0:08:29.680,0:08:32.109
he left to his two sons

0:08:32.133,0:08:34.284
nothing more than a life-insurance policy

0:08:34.308,0:08:38.191
that was barely enough[br]to cover his funeral expenses.

0:08:39.295,0:08:41.961
Now my parents, both social workers,

0:08:41.985,0:08:44.572
they actually managed to purchase a home

0:08:44.596,0:08:48.316
in the Crown Heights section[br]of Brooklyn, New York, in 1980,

0:08:48.340,0:08:51.273
for 55,000 dollars.

0:08:51.871,0:08:54.879
Now Crown Heights, at the time,[br]was an all-Black neighborhood,

0:08:54.903,0:08:56.371
and it was kind of rough.

0:08:56.395,0:08:58.783
My brother and I often went to sleep,

0:08:58.807,0:09:00.204
by the mid-1980s,

0:09:00.228,0:09:01.668
hearing gunshots.

0:09:02.883,0:09:06.644
But my parents protected us,

0:09:06.668,0:09:10.192
and my parents also held onto that home.

0:09:10.581,0:09:12.025
For 40 years.

0:09:12.339,0:09:14.019
And they're still there.

0:09:14.427,0:09:17.799
But something quintessentially[br]American happened

0:09:17.823,0:09:19.343
about 20 years ago.

0:09:19.811,0:09:21.200
About 20 years ago,

0:09:21.224,0:09:24.787
they went to sleep one night[br]in an all-Black neighborhood,

0:09:24.811,0:09:26.748
and they woke up the next morning

0:09:26.772,0:09:28.336
in an all-white neighborhood.

0:09:28.360,0:09:30.276
(Laughter)

0:09:30.300,0:09:32.839
And as a result of gentrification,

0:09:32.863,0:09:35.512
not only did all their neighbors[br]mysteriously disappear,

0:09:36.823,0:09:38.798
but the value of their home

0:09:40.270,0:09:41.638
skyrocketed.

0:09:42.466,0:09:45.760
So that home that they purchased[br]for 55,000 dollars --

0:09:45.784,0:09:48.490
at 29 percent interest, by the way --

0:09:48.514,0:09:53.848
that home is now worth[br]30 times what they paid it for.

0:09:54.285,0:09:55.458
Thirty times.

0:09:55.482,0:09:56.642
Do the math with me.

0:09:56.666,0:09:58.689
That's 55,000 times 30, carry the zeros --

0:09:58.713,0:10:00.212
That's a lot of money.

0:10:00.236,0:10:02.283
(Laughter)

0:10:02.815,0:10:04.863
So that means,

0:10:04.887,0:10:07.299
as their single and sole asset,

0:10:07.323,0:10:12.189
when the time comes for them[br]to pass that asset on to my brother and I,

0:10:12.213,0:10:16.783
that will be the first time[br]in my family's history,

0:10:16.807,0:10:20.562
more than 150 years[br]after the end of slavery,

0:10:20.586,0:10:24.610
that there will be a meaningful[br]transfer of wealth in my family.

0:10:25.745,0:10:28.570
And it's not because family[br]members haven't saved,

0:10:28.594,0:10:29.958
haven't worked hard,

0:10:29.982,0:10:31.886
haven't valued education.

0:10:32.553,0:10:35.612
It's because of hard history.

0:10:36.506,0:10:38.467
So when I think about the past,

0:10:38.491,0:10:41.426
my concern about not remembering it

0:10:41.450,0:10:45.654
is not that we will repeat it[br]if we don't remember it.

0:10:46.242,0:10:50.329
My concern, my fear[br]is that if we don't remember the past,

0:10:50.353,0:10:52.559
we will continue it.

0:10:53.186,0:10:55.537
We will continue to do the things

0:10:55.561,0:11:00.119
that created inequality and injustice[br]in the first place.

0:11:00.767,0:11:02.514
So what we must do

0:11:02.538,0:11:08.656
is we must disrupt[br]the continuum of hard history.

0:11:09.211,0:11:13.225
And we can do this by seeking truth.

0:11:13.868,0:11:16.725
By confronting hard history directly.

0:11:16.749,0:11:21.265
By magnifying hard history[br]for all the world to see.

0:11:22.032,0:11:25.008
We can do this by speaking truth.

0:11:25.548,0:11:29.167
Teachers teaching hard history[br]to their students.

0:11:29.191,0:11:34.018
To do anything else is to commit[br]educational malpractice.

0:11:34.549,0:11:37.232
And parents have to speak truth[br]to their children,

0:11:37.256,0:11:38.908
so that they understand

0:11:38.932,0:11:41.986
where we have come from as a nation.

0:11:42.653,0:11:46.875
And finally, we must all act on truth.

0:11:47.590,0:11:49.844
Individually and collectively,

0:11:49.868,0:11:51.622
publicly and privately,

0:11:51.646,0:11:54.744
in small ways and in large ways.

0:11:54.768,0:11:59.721
We must do the things that will bend[br]the arc of the moral universe

0:11:59.745,0:12:00.966
towards justice.

0:12:00.990,0:12:03.933
To do nothing is to be complicit

0:12:04.989,0:12:06.139
in inequality.

0:12:07.046,0:12:09.990
History reminds us

0:12:10.014,0:12:12.331
that we, as a nation,

0:12:12.355,0:12:16.521
stand on the shoulders of political giants

0:12:16.545,0:12:18.065
like James Madison.

0:12:18.752,0:12:24.506
But hard history reminds us[br]that we, as a nation,

0:12:24.530,0:12:30.480
also stand on the shoulders[br]of enslaved African American children.

0:12:31.314,0:12:34.759
Little Black boys and little Black girls

0:12:34.783,0:12:38.862
who, with their bare hands,[br]made the bricks

0:12:38.886,0:12:42.906
that serve as the foundation[br]for this nation.

0:12:43.509,0:12:49.462
And if we are serious[br]about creating a fair and just society,

0:12:49.486,0:12:53.027
then we would do well to remember that,

0:12:53.051,0:12:56.198
and we would do well to remember them.

0:12:56.895,0:12:58.046
Thank you.

0:12:58.070,0:13:04.809
(Applause)