We took a “Community Walk” at my school right before school started. It was an opportunity to stretch our legs and seek out the rich history of Old Town Alexandria. Our students live right next door to landmarks that are intimately connected to the formation of our nation and, subsequently, the stories that make history what it is… And there are so many of them!
However, lost in all of that are the intimate stories of others, mainly the enslaved people, that made the more well known and dazzling historical figures, and even places, what they are to those who read about them in textbooks, etc. and study them. One of those stories happens to be about the happenings within Christ Church in Old Town Alexandria and how the church itself became a figure in both political and business dealings and later became a clandestine ground for national leaders to meet and greet, making respective tour-like stops to pay homage to historicity, namely George Washington, the first president of the United States.
Christ Church was the church that George Washington attended. It is where other important political figures of the time would also go to make his acquaintance. But while this fact may seem intriguing, what really got my attention was not who attended the church but who did not, and there were many of them: Those who were enslaved and worked for the Washingtons, a sum estimated to be over six hundred in various positions and on various estates, among others. But even those that had jobs close to George Washington and his wife Martha, like his driver and butler, Willy, or the handmaid, Ona (Oney), were not permitted to be in the church, much less sit in a pew.
Admittedly, I was quite impressed with our guide for the Community Walk. She deftly transitioned us from place to place, handling the information in a personal way that spoke to her own political convictions while also refraining from being judgmental of what was clearly the other side for her. I welcomed her pseudo-candidness and loved that she was willing to have a conversation with us, an open diatribe that allowed us to ask questions (and boy, did I ask questions). When we reached Christ Church, I was already primed and my curiosity was showing… I love history, and as I’ve gotten older I’ve come to love it more. I have a deep appreciation for what came before me. Needless to say, that led me to prod and ask questions and from the moment that I set foot on the church ground and was told that enslaved people built the church but were not permitted to go in, I needed to know more.
Inside the church, we were met with another guide and he and our Community Walk guide formed a good team, explaining and bouncing responses off of each other as we continued to ask questions (mostly me). There were some truly great exchanges in the church where George Washington attended and presumably worshipped. But when the internal guide pointed out George Washington’s family’s box seat of pews, my most poignant question was of austerity. I asked if we (general visitors) were allowed to sit in those seats. The guide empathically answered ‘yes’, I could tell he knew where I was going next; I responded openly with, “Good, ‘cause I want to sit where we couldn’t, where my ancestors didn’t get to, for them.” And so, I opened the Washington family’s box and went in. I made sure to sit in George Washington’s seat. He was a tall man, I was told, so he would sit in the corner of the box seat of pews to have the most leg room. I did the same.
Sitting in George Washington’s seat was not about being flashy, nor was it a taunt. Rather, it was a fulfillment. The enslaved people who built the church that the privileged walked in and built the seats that they sat in are owed… A debt that can never be paid directly do them in this life and reality. It can only be called to payment by us — descendants of their flesh and blood and progenies of their hard work. Posterity did not exist for my enslaved ancestors, hope of a better day was nowhere near a horizon for them. Yet, here I am. An educator. An English teacher. A writer. An editor. I am everything that my people were never supposed to be and that’s because of them and, subsequently, the people who fought so hard to get us to this moment in time. And so, on that particular day, I sat in the seat of the man who is famous for being the Father of our Nation… A man who also didn’t intend for me to ever sit there.
Thank you all for taking the time to read this entry. CHARACTER + OBSTACLE = STORY is all about storytelling and what I am attempting to do with each entry going forward is to fill this Substack with content that is full of stories. That’s what this community is about, and I hope that you all will continue to be on this journey with me as I continue to share experiences and tell stories for those who have a voice, but especially for those who do not.
Talk soon,
B
Thanks for sharing! I’m sure your students learned more than they anticipated.