ATAC\'s 100,000 For 100,000,000
WHEREAS, we- the members and supporters of the Avenging The Ancestors Coalition (ATAC) and descendants of the 100,000,000 Africans who were kidnapped, enslaved, raped, castrated, lynched, and murdered by America and Europe- are opposed to the incomplete plans of Independence National Historical Park (INHP) to move the Liberty Bell to a location near Sixth and Market Streets in Philadelphia, PA because those plans fail to sufficiently address the historical fact that President George Washington resided there in America\'s first \"White House\" while holding eight African human beings in brutal bondage as slaves at that location (with more than 300 others held at his Mt. Vernon, VA plantation), WHEREAS, that first \"White House\" was known as the Robert Morris Mansion, which was named after one of the financiers of the Revolutionary War who acquired a substantial portion of his wealth in America\'s horrifically inhumane slave trade, WHEREAS, those eight Africans, just like the other 100,000,000 Africans who were victimized for 300 years in the American and European slave trade, are the reason that America and Europe have become \"free,\" financial, technological, and military world powers (not to mention, e.g., the fact that the African American daughter of \"Black Sam\" saved Washington\'s life when a British spy attempted to poison him and the fact that Jocko, a 12 year old African American soldier, became a Revolutionary War hero as a result of courageously volunteering for a hazardous military assignment on December 26, 1776 when he crossed the Delaware River in a blizzard and froze to death in a standing position after rounding up scattered horses for Washington\'s later successful surprise attack against the British), WHEREAS, the Liberty Bell became internationally known only after anti-slavery forces named it and adopted it as the symbol of their cause in 1835, WHEREAS, INHP has failed to permanently and conspicuously mark the footprint of the \"slave quarters\" where at least three of the eight enslaved Africans were caged at the exact location of what is currently the entrance to the new Liberty Bell Center, and WHEREAS, the US government has never provided any reparations whatsoever to any one of the 100,000,000 victimized Africans or their descendants, We, the undersigned, therefore demand a culturally dignified, historically complete, physically dramatic, and timely installed/presented commemorative project in the form of both a physical and a verbal manifestation as well as a conspicuous and permanent \"slave quarters\" footprint to memorialize the victimized Africans, and We, the undersigned, therefore also demand that such project and marking include the substantive and ongoing participation of African designers, architects, sculptors, construction firms, consultants, community members, and other descendants of the 100,000,000 who were victims of the greatest holocaust in the history of humankind. For more information, contact Michael Coard, Esquire at 215/552-8714 or at mc@bowserweaver.com. (ATAC invites everyone to complete this petition. The current deadline is July 4, 2004.)
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