In a series of articles beginning on Oct. 2, 1966, I wrote about the long-forgotten history of the Liberty Tree. To call attention to how obscure the site had become, I interviewed waitresses at the Essex Delicatessen below the plaque on Washington Street. None knew what the Liberty Tree was.
deep they delved us, fair they wrought us, high they builded us; but they are gone.
Land of lost gods and godlike men.
So many people of color who made major contributions to American history have been trapped in the purgatory of history.
The essentially unchangeable established order of things slowly disappeared and was forgotten for a while completely.
[It is possible] that the race of red men ... will, before many generations, be remembered only as a strange, weird, dream-like specter, which has passed once before the eyes of men, but had departed forever.
I've found that once people are introduced to Madam Walker's story, they are inspired but also perplexed about why she was omitted from their history lessons.
There is also, in any history, the buried, the wasted, and the lost.
