JUDY WOODRUFF: As part of our ongoing Race
Matters Solutions series, special correspondent
Charlayne Hunter-Gault recently visited Montpelier,
the home of the fourth U.S. president, James
Madison.
It's in Virginia.
A new permanent exhibit is opening the door
on a rarely told side of Madison involving
his slaves and how they lived.
CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: This sprawling, bucolic
Virginia countryside is the plantation where
James Madison, the so-called father of the
Constitution, puzzled over liberties as he
helped frame America's democracy.
It's also here that he and his wife, Dolley,
held over 300 slaves.
Now, with a new interactive exhibit called
The Mere Distinction of Colour, there is a
new way of looking at that story.
Visitors hear stories of the slaves here told
by their living descendants.
There's insight into economic, ideological
and political factors that cemented slavery
in the Constitution, without ever using the
word slavery.
And films connect the past to the present,
looking at the legacy of slavery to issues
of race and identity today.
In addition to the new exhibit in the Madison
home itself, there are new ways of talking
about the rich and complicated history of
Montpelier.
Visitors can tour slave cabins, tour a slave
cemetery which bears no headstones, watch
archaeologists dig up more evidence that pieces
together the interconnectedness of everybody
on the plantation.
To talk about those issues, I spent time with
Leontyne Peck, a genealogist and participant
in Montpelier's public archaeology program.
Peck took me inside one of the cramped slave
quarters where eight people lived.
So, this was all dirt?
LEONTYNE PECK, Montpelier Descendent: It was
all dirt, yes.
We found our artifacts.
We found a lot of different things.
We found a pipe, which was extraordinarily
exciting.
My grandfather, he had smoked a pipe.
And, really, when I touched the pipe, I really
felt connected to him.
And then I found much more than that.
I found my family.
CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: I also visited Madison's
bedroom with Mary Alexander, a great-great-granddaughter
of Paul Jennings.
He served Madison at the White House and also
at Montpelier.
He wrote the first White House memoir, "A
Colored Man's Reminiscences of James Madison."
She told me what her reaction was when she
saw this room or the first time.
MARY ALEXANDER, Montpelier Descendent: I had
just finished caretaking for my father, who
died of Parkinson's disease.
And to think that Paul Jennings was doing
the same exact things for James Madison that
I had done for my father, it just overwhelmed
me.
I knew the intimacy and the love and the care
that had to go on between the two of them,
because you can't take care of someone and
not love them.
CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: I talked further with
Mary Alexander and with Montpelier president
and CEO Kat Imhoff inside the Madison mansion.
Kat, first tell me how you arrived at the
title for this exhibition.
KAT IMHOFF, President and CEO, The Montpelier
Foundation: The title The Mere Distinction
of Colour comes from a quote that Madison
writes in his notes when he's working in 1787
on the Constitutional Convention.
He says: "We have never seen the mere distinction
of color in a most enlightened period of time
a ground for the most oppressive dominion
exercised by man over man."
Now, Madison is saying this as a young man.
He's in the debates about the rights and the
freedoms that are going to be set forth in
what becomes the U.S. Constitution.
CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: When he uttered those
words, he didn't have slavery in mind.
KAT IMHOFF: He did.
He was saying that mere distinction of color,
what an incredible missed opportunity that
we're using that distinction of color to make
one man oppress the other.
And this is as a young, idealistic 35-, 36-year-old
in the hot rooms in Philadelphia as they're
duking out writing the U.S. Constitution.
CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: But who had slavery.
KAT IMHOFF: And he is a slave owner, and he's
grown up now third-generation slave owner
here at Montpelier.
CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: So, what happened?
He just didn't make that distinction, or...
KAT IMHOFF: What the debate ends up being
is, can you get enough votes to get the U.S.
Constitution ratified?
If you said that you were not going to allow
or enable in some way or codify slavery, without
ever mentioning it, you were never going to
get enough votes to ratify the U.S. Constitution.
So, James Madison, in those early days, chooses
the union over really what he knows in his
heart is the right thing to do.
But the other part that got me so intrigued
was the descendant community was involved
with Montpelier early on, but no one had really
been able to pick up that thread and bring
those 300 voices into the stories.
CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: The descendant community
is sitting next to you.
So what drew you here?
MARY ALEXANDER: Well, actually, my mother,
she never told the family history to anyone
outside of our family.
Paul Jennings was enslaved here with James
Madison.
He said that he shaved him every day for 42
years.
My understanding is that he and James Madison
had a relationship where they were almost
like brothers with each other, the way that
they interacted.
I think if you put it in the context of slaves
being assets and property, and that, when
James Madison died, his estate being in such
debt, and them having to sell off every asset
they had, and, unfortunately, the human beings
who were here were assets also, he didn't
get the chance to be distinguished outside
of those people.
CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Kat, how do you see
that?
KAT IMHOFF: Well, they had trouble explaining
their double standard even to themselves during
their time period.
And I think it's quite intriguing to look
at their own writing on this.
But, I mean, I think that's the challenge
of American history.
Not only can you be inspired, yes, James Madison,
father of the Constitution, great thinking,
defines rights, but I think we have always
had this love-hate affair with really understanding
how complex our history is.
Not only can I be inspired by James Madison,
but I can be inspired by people like Paul
Jennings.
I can now understand that African-American
history is indeed American history.
CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: How do you think it's
working, Kat?
I mean, who is coming here?
And what are they taking away from it in terms
of race?
KAT IMHOFF: What I'm hearing from people when
they're visiting, they're both saying, we're
so happy because now we really understand
more the humanity of the people who lived
here.
CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Black and white.
KAT IMHOFF: Black and white.
I think, really, people, when they hear those
stories and they can put themselves, project
themselves into those places, they really
take more away from it, and also the relevance
today.
I think that's what we have always been -- it's
really easy to talk about things 200 years
ago.
And it's a lot more difficult when you bring
it all the way up today, and you go, no, the
legacy of slavery is still with us.
It's part of our democratic DNA.
It is hard-baked into how we are as a people.
MARY ALEXANDER: There's a morality question
that all of us have to grapple with.
This was a business to these people.
Unfortunately, the business was other human
beings.
James Madison would have never been able to
do, or any of the founding fathers would have
never had the liberty to go into this whole
discussion about government and humanity and
how people should conduct themselves.
They would have never been able to do that
without these people who were in the background
working for them.
CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: So, this will help
set that record straight, you think?
MARY ALEXANDER: I'm praying.
KAT IMHOFF: You know, Mary has often commented
on how she wants people to think and understand
and have that strong intellectual connection.
So, I love that fact that we're both the heart
and the head in thinking about how people
should connect with Montpelier.
MARY ALEXANDER: And I also recognize you can't
get the head without getting to the heart
first.
CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Well, Kat Imhoff and
Mary Alexander, thank you so much for your
insights.
Thank you very much.
MARY ALEXANDER: Thank you.
