Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, September 19, 1993 TAG: 9309190173
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: ALEXANDRIA LENGTH: Medium
The event at Mount Vernon, George Washington's historic estate about 16 miles south of Washington, featured a poetry reading by poet Nikki Giovanni, a professor of English at Virginia Tech.
"We as a people have to be aware of the lives that these slaves led," said Rev. Lillian D. Anthony, of Louisville, Ky., who read an invocation. "It is an important first step in recovering a significant portion of our history."
Also attending the event were former Health and Human Services Secretary Louis Sullivan; Virginia Democratic gubernatorial candidate Mary Sue Terry, and Sen. Charles Robb, D-Va.
Roughly 200 descendants of the 317 slaves owned by Washington at his death in 1799 read names of their ancestors.
The memorial marks a burial ground that served Washington's slaves and free blacks who tended the plantation after the first president's death.
It is a granite column about 4 feet high, sitting on three concentric circles with the words "faith," "hope" and "love," and surrounded by boxwood shrubs taken from cuttings of bushes originally planted at Mount Vernon in 1798.
It was designed in 1983 by a group of Howard University architectural students.
Five of the 10 students who worked on the project were also presented with replicas of the monument Saturday.
Two years before his death, Washington wrote that he was convinced that emancipation was the only answer for slavery.
"I wish from my soul that the legislature of this State could see a policy of gradual Abolition of Slavery."
In his will, Washington freed his slaves, and left instructions for their care and support.
by CNB