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Article: Building liberty's capital: Black labor and the new federal city.(African American construction workers; Special Issue: The Untold Story of Blacks in the White House)
- Article from:
- American Visions
- Article date:
- February 1, 1995
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1995 Heritage Information Holdings, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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The White House and the Capitol--the gleaming symbols of our great democracy--are situated at the center of the world's first planned capital. Conceived by George Washington and planned by Pierre L'Enfant, Washington, D.C., stands as one of the great successes of planning and architectural history.
Although the story of the design and planning of the new Federal city is well-known, little has been written about the people whose labor actually built this country's most symbolic structures. Few who gaze toward the White House and the Capitol realize that much of the work force that built them was black.
There is a double irony here: Most of the African Americans ...