Good day, I'm Mrs. John Adams or Abigail Adams
to my friends.
And I would like to introduce them with my
friends that we have here today.
I have Mr. Thomas Jefferson.
As always, you do me honor.
And I thank you for that.
Mr. Edward Hector, Bombardier Edward Hector.
A pleasure to be with you.
And Mrs. Oney Judge.
Delighted to be here.
So, I guess we could start with everybody
saying a little bit of something about themselves.
It's pleasure to have you all here today!
Mrs. Judge, you go first, ladies first.
Thank you.
My name is Mrs. Oney Judge.
I'm happy to report that
I am now a married woman.
I will not give complete details of my whereabouts
as we have, unfortunately had to uproot twice now,
but I'm originally from Virginia, which
is close to my heart, but now I call the North
my home and I'm very grateful for my time
spent in Philadelphia, New York, New Jersey.
I'm very fortunate to have had those experiences.
I wasn't always a free woman, but I am proud
to call myself a woman of freedom now.
And apparently, you're also a mother.
Yes, yes I am.
Right now, we have just our daughter, but
I'm hoping that we have the patter of feet
of more, hopefully several more months.
But we have that in common as well.
My oldest is my daughter Nabby.
Good luck with your babies, my dear.
My dear Hector, would you like to introduce yourself?
My name is Edward Hector.
Many of my friends know me as Ned.
I'm one of many blacks who fought in the
American Revolution.
I served with Proctor's Third Pennsylvania Artillery.
As a Bombardier and as an artillery teamster.
As a Bombardier, I manned one of the three
rear positions of the cannon.
As a teamster, I transported ammunition and
helped to haul the cannons from battle to battle.
I saw action in the Battle of Brandywine and
that Battle of Germantown as well.
I am remembered for a heroic act involving
saving my horses, my wagons, my cannons,
and some fallen muskets.
We were given the orders when our hill was
overall ran by the Red Coats to abandon our
horses, our wagons and retreat down towards Chester.
Instead of doing that, I said they shall not
have my team.
I will save my team and myself.
After the war, I would live to the age of
90 years old.
I would try three times to get my pension from
the Pennsylvania Congress only to be denied.
They would finally grant me a gratuity instead
of forty dollars.
I'm so well-regarded in my home community
of Conshohocken that I wouldn't be surprised
if they would end up naming a street after me.
That's wonderful, Bombardier Hector.
I do believe they should name a street after you
in Conshohocken.
They should name the street "Hector Street" for you.
And I personally would love to take a carriage
ride down that street.
Mr. Jefferson, would you like to do a brief
introduction of yourself?
My name is Thomas Jefferson.
I was born in 1743 into a family and into
a colony and into a culture that did not question
to any practical degree, the notion that as
one's grandparents and great grandparents
were, and as one's parents were, so was one.
That our worth as humans was determined more
than any one thing on those who had come before us.
I was born in a colony, colony of Virginia
that was part of the British Empire.
By being part of the British Empire,
that meant that I grew up being very proud
that I had a King.
Being very proud of the fact that my King
was my King because of who his parents were.
That's what gave him value.
Wasn't until later in my life, I began to
challenge some of those ideas.
I did, I began to question them.
Mostly from reading and from various mentors
and teachers
I came across along the way.
At William and Mary, and later in my study of law.
And even later in my life.
By the end of my life, I had helped in a movement
on this continent, that inspired movements
on other continents to challenge those things,
that when I was a child, I barely questioned.
We made progress in changing some of those.
We questioned the validity of the Divine Right
of Kings, the Right of a King to rule at all
because of who his parents were.
And we also laid the groundwork for questioning
throughout of anyone to be considered free
or slave, criminal or otherwise because of
what the parents did.
I'm proud of what I was able to do and helping
change some of those things that were assumed
when I was young. I acknowledged that I wasn't
able to do everything, but by the time I came
near the end of my time, I felt that imperfect
though, any human effort might be, perhaps
I could allow two or three things to stand
as testimonials that I had lived.
And what is a testimonial after all?
It's not something that takes away all of
your mistakes or pretends as though you are
something greater than human.
A testimonial is something that speaks for you.
Someone that speaks for you and says, look
at this person with all of their strengths
and their faults here, are their merits.
Please consider them when you consider this
person's worth.
If I were to be remembered then for three
things that would stand as testimonials that
I would live with all this in mind, I would
say, I want to be remembered as the author
of the Declaration of American Independence,
of the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom,
and father of the University of Virginia.
Well, thank you Mr. Jefferson.
I don't think I gave myself a brief introduction.
Again, I am Ms. John Adams.
And in response to your recollections
and the things that you considered important
in your life, Mr. Jefferson, I would say personally,
I don't expect that I should be remembered
for anything other than being the wife of
John Adams, whom you knew very well.
And Mr. Adams, and you served on a very important
committee, the committee to draft the Declaration
of Independency. Oh, you also serve together
and separately in government for many years,
but I should like to this day discuss the
Declaration of Independency.
Now it was on March 31st that I wrote my husband the
letter in anticipation of that very same independence.
I asked my husband though that as long as
there was to be a new code of laws, which
I supposed it would indeed be necessary for
us all to make, that I desired you would
remember the ladies.
Be more kind and generous to us than your
ancestors have been, and to not put unlimited
power into the hands of the husbands.
Now, unfortunately in our Declaration of Independency,
certainly,
and I know Mrs. Judge, you too can attest to this,
that the ladies were not remembered.
Indeed, one could easily say that
three-fifths of our population were
not necessarily included in the
Declaration of Independency, but the
Declaration of Independency was not law.
It was not our Constitution.
It was a guideline.
It was the hope...
it was a hope for the future.
That as you have said on many times, Mr. Jefferson,
all men are created equal.
And it was your hope that in future generations,
all men would be treated as they are created,
which as you often say is equal.
So, as we have a very diverse panel here today,
I should like to ask us all, what is our hope
for Independence in the United States?
What is our hope for the future of this generation?
What are we raising our children?
Mrs. Judge, Mr. Hector,  Mr. Jefferson.
We are all parents.
What are we raising them to achieve for the
future of this nation?
As a new mother the one thing that I can hope
for, I don't know if I will see it in my lifetime,
but I do hope that it will happen for later
generations for women, such as myself .
And I hope that independence will come to
everyone.
I am raising my children to be strong and
independent and to be educated.
Education was not given to me.
It was not thought to be necessary for who
I was and for what I was doing.
But I found that when you strip education
away from an entire population of people,
you render them powerless.
But when I finally took those steps to leave
the household, one of the first things that
I did when I came to New Hampshire was I learned
how to read and how to write. That to me is
true independence, knowing what you are seeing
and understanding it.
And I know that my daughter is headstrong
already, and I can only hope that she will
be strong for the future generations as well.
Education is important and should be stressed
that everyone must learn their past.
They must learn from their ancestors and they
must learn from their community and they must
come together to make sure that the young
ones are reared up and educated.
They must understand where we have come from
so that we do not go back into that dark past.
Mrs. Judge.
I hear you're charming little Eliza there
in the background, by the way, my sister is
an Elizabeth.
So it's a name that's very near and dear
to our family.
I would like to know, how are you able to
educate your daughter?
What is the state of education in the state
of New Hampshire?
I rely on the lot of the free community.
They helped me in Philadelphia, and they've
helped me in New Hampshire.
It was difficult to trust again, especially
after the fugitive slave act.
It really made me very nervous to consider
that a white person would be willing to help me.
I had to remind myself that there are those
who wish to see me do better in my life,
who wished for me to understand and to grow in
their community and as shocking as it is,
Mr. Whipple in New Hampshire has been
very, very, very good to me and my family.
And the free community here has been very
helpful, but I'm mostly the one that is teaching
them the numbers and their letters, which
is helping me to get better with my numbers
and my letters, which I did not think possible.
But I find comfort in doing that with them.
I love the repetition of it, and I do enjoy reading.
I really do.
And I love to read to them at night and I
read to them stories and I've read to them
from the Bible and it comforts me.
It comforts them.
And I hope they pass that on, but it's the
community here, the free community that has
blessed me with this opportunity.
With having someone show me the letters and
understand the numbers and how they work and
how I can apply that to my everyday life.
Mr. Hector, Bombardier Hector, would you like to give
us your thoughts and your hopes for independence?
Even more so than my personal desire to be
remembered I want those like myself to be
remembered.
Three to five thousand people of color served the American Cause.
Seven to ten thousand served the British.
Believe it or not, General Washington would
have one of the most integrated armies all
the way up until, well, until much, much,
much later.
General Washington also will command at least three
majority black regimens, one from Massachusetts,
one from Rhode Island, and a group that would
come in with the French from Haiti.
And they would play an important part in the
struggle for our independence.
Again, the battle up in New York.
We'd be losing every last battle until finally
we would have our backs up against the river
at Brooklyn Heights, we would be trapped.
The next day, the British are going to close in.
They are going to annihilate this army.
They're going to capture the traitor Washington.
That's going to be the end of our fight for
independence, but under the cover night and
fog, under the very nose of the British warships
that were anchored in that Harbor that night,
men would rule their boats up.
They load these men onto their boats,
and they would take them across the river.
Some making that trip as many as 11 times
at night.
What people don't realize is that many of
those men who are rowing those boats are
black sailors from Marblehead, Massachusetts.
That night, these men save our revolution
and allow us to continue our fight for independence.
Not only that there's going to be another battle
that's going to come down the pike, 
the Battle of Yorktown.
Oh, did you know that we had spies
in the British camp? There are black spies in the
British camp. They would get information that
the British are going to Yorktown.
Washington and Lafayette will make plans.
They would surround the British at Yorktown.
But in trying to execute the battle, trying
to take Yorktown, they would get thrown back
a couple of times. Finally they would start
doing it digging trenches towards Yorktown.
Washington would call on his best regiments,
the Rhode Island regiment.
They go in with their bayonets fixed, their
guns unloaded, and they would take their objective
of one of those defensive positions
in 10 minutes.
The French would take out the other one.
We would bring up our heavy cannons.
We're committed with the bombardment of the city.
Until finally, finally, the British would give up.
This is where we would win the war.
By the end of the war, 10 to 25% of Washington's
army would be people of color.
Now, people may not realize that the good
General doesn't really win that many battles.
Maybe let's pretend he fights ten battles, out
of ten battles
maybe the only wins two or three.
Now you take away about a quarter of its army.
What do you think the chances of them winning
this war are now?
Not too good.
So, we people of color played an important
part and the central part to us being the
independent nation that we will become later on.
What I hope to see is that we are no longer
divided by so many differences.
And we can see what makes us similar to one
another: family, children, as such as they are.
But I want my story to be known because it
wasn't just the men who ran away.
And it wasn't just people who had means.
And sometimes you strike when the iron is
hot and you go and you leave behind everything
and everyone you've ever known, but you make
your own new family and family is what's important.
The community and the bonds that you create.
I hope my story is known and it gives inspiration
to women that we can do great things, even
if we can't read and we can't write, we can
accomplish great things.
And don't feel limited by your lack of education
or your lack of funds.
Just remember your past, what you hope to
see and for your future.
And that'll drive you towards pushing.
We have set what I think of as a primitive
example, not for future generations to follow,
but for future generations to improve upon.
All men are created equal means that the earth
belongs to the living, not to the dead.
With that in mind, I hope that the words in this
document, our Declaration of Independence,
serve to continually remind each succeeding
generation that they are our future peers.
And as our peers, it is not for them to place
us on pedestals, but rather to take their
rightful place beside us in the never ending
fight against tyranny, they will achieve this
by encouraging the progress of science and
all its branches, and not by raising a hue
and cry against the sacred name of philosophy,
nor by aweing the human mind by stories of
raw head and bloody bones, to a distrust of
its own vision and to repose implicitly on
that of others.
To go backward instead of forwards, to look
for improvement, to believe that government,
religion, morality, and every other science
we're in the highest perfection and ages of
the darkest ignorance, and that nothing can
ever be devised more perfect than what was
established by their forefathers.
If by contemplation of the words in the Declaration
of Independence, future generations can know
that they are in full possession of the sacred
fire of Liberty and that they can and must
spread the light from that flame to enlighten
the world more than was possible for the generation
that first kindled that flame.
That will mean that America has improved,
not become perfect, but more perfect.
And I believe that is all we can hope for.
I want to thank you all for joining me today
in this discussion.
I do hope that we give the rising generation
some things to think about as for myself and
for my closing hopes for this nation.
My hopes for myself are long gone.
I am a woman of a certain age.
My children are all birthed and they are busy
being educated.
They are busy forming their own lives, having
their own children.
That is indeed what our movement of independence
was for.
So that we would not consign future generations
to feeling of servitude that we could not
leave our country in a worse position than
we ourselves have been born to.
It is my hope that I am raising my children,
that they should carry on the goals of Liberty
for all, that they should carry on the idea
that all men are created equal and that eventually
we will come to a more perfect union.
The one that is promised in our eventual Constitution.
I want to thank you all for joining me today.
And I wish you all well in our future endeavors
as a nation.
