Montpelier reversed its power-sharing promise. Now it's retreating from its history of enslavement.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

https://richmond.com/news/local/history/williams-first-montpelier-reversed-its-power-sharing-promise-with-descendants-of-the-enslaved-now-its/article_60db22ed-e961-581f-9be0-2486214935e9.html

Williams: First, Montpelier reversed its power-sharing promise with descendants of the enslaved. Now, it's retreating from its history of enslavement.

In March, the Montpelier Foundation board reneged on a June 2021 restructuring that gave descendants of the enslaved there “structural parity” on its board — a reversal criticized by Montpelier staff who had spent decades partnering with the descendant community in excavating the estate’s history of enslavement.

And starting last week, Montpelier Foundation CEO Roy Young terminated or suspended members of its staff, including the firings of executive vice president and chief curator Elizabeth Chew, director of archeology Matt Reeves and spokeswoman Christy Moriarty. Chew and Reeves learned of their dismissals Monday via their personal email while vacationing.

(snip)

A much-lauded promise to share power equally with the descendants of the enslaved has devolved into the erasure of key staff responsible for uncovering the history of enslavement at the estate of “The Father of the Constitution.”

“They wanted to yank the narrative of Montpelier away from slavery, despite all of their protestations to the contrary,” said board member James French, chair of the Montpelier Descendants Committee . “And they wanted to create a false history that sees slavery and the constitution as unrelated opposites when in fact, freedom and slavery occupied the same place in Montpelier like no other place in the country.”

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1. Supreme hipocrisy. Disgraceful. But it follows with the character of the man.

Jefferson, the father of the Constitution and its high tone words of liberty, ironically never freed his own enslaved people, and in fact fathered at least one child with an enslaved woman.

Yep, this action of Montpelier administrators is in keeping with the history of the place.