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The Invisibles: The
Untold Story of African American Slaves in The White House
by Jesse J. Holland
c.2016, Lyons
Press
$25.95 / higher in Canada
226 pages
By Terri
Schlichenmeyer
The Truth Contributor
If the walls
could talk, imagine what they’d say.
They’d reminisce about family
meals, holidays, celebrations and romance, take sides in
arguments and watch children grow. If those walls could
talk, they’d tell of triumph, disappointment, beginnings,
and endings. And, as in the new book, The Invisibles
by Jesse J. Holland, they’d talk of freedom and history.
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When Barack Obama moved into
the White House in 2009, he was, by far, not the first black
man to live there. From the beginning, as soon as America
had a president, there were slaves residing in the Executive
Mansion. In fact, says Holland, “ten of the first twelve
presidents [were] slaveholders at some point in their
lives.”
When George Washington fought in
the Revolutionary War, his “favorite” slave, Billy Lee, went
with him so it was natural that Washington would bring Lee
to New York, to the first presidential mansion. Lee
reportedly loved New York but when he suffered physical
disabilities, Washington summarily replaced him, sending him
back to Mt. Vernon where Lee was later one of a handful of
slaves who comforted Washington as he died.
As a child, Oney Judge was
brought up to learn sewing at Martha Washington’s knee.
Years later, Washington would say that she thought of Judge
as a “surrogate daughter,” but she was more than willing to
give Judge away in order to keep her enslaved. Judge, by the
way, was one of a few slaves known to have escaped from a
president.
Thomas Jefferson brazenly took a
slave to France, where slavery was disallowed; the slave,
who was the brother of Jefferson’s “concubine,” Sally, did
not try to escape. When Dolley Madison fell on hard times
after leaving the White House, her husband’s former slave
gave her money. Andrew Jackson kept slaves in the White
House stables; they were jockeys and Jackson loved racing
ponies. James Monroe spoke out against slavery, even as he
owned slaves. Andrew Johnson possibly had a “’colored
concubine.’” And just one ex-slave of a president was
“honored by a holder of that office.”
Wow.
Please practice saying that word
– “Wow!” – because you’ll need it even more when you start
reading The Invisibles.
In just under 200 pages, author
Jesse J. Holland packs so many interesting stories, so many
jaw-dropping facts that, even though there were small errors
and minor repetition, I very much regretted this books’
shortness. Holland’s storytelling skills have a way of
making a reader hungry for more, and the tales he tells are
surprising and even inspirational.
Some of those tales – mixed in
between those of the presidents’ slaves - precede the White
House, to look at slavery from the nation’s very beginning,
even before there was a president. That’s where we learn
that an African immigrant was the owner of the first legal
slave…
Admittedly, die-hard historians
might not find much new here, but I simply couldn’t put this
book down. If you want something that’s short on pages but
long on interest, The Invisibles is the one you’ll be
talking about.
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