http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xB1eGI8GqcgThe White House as it looked following the conflagration of August 24, 1814
First Lady Praises NY City College Diversity at Commencement
Drudge via AP/NBC NY
Michelle Obama praised the diverse graduates of the city's oldest public institution of higher learning and took a mild swipe at Donald Trump as she delivered the last commencement address of her tenure as U.S. first lady on Friday.
"I really want you all to know that there is a reason why, of all of the colleges and universities in this country, I chose this particular school in this particular city for this special moment," Obama told the graduates of the City College of New York.
Noting that students at the 169-year-old college come from 150 countries and speak more than 100 languages, she said, "You represent just about every possible background - every color and culture, every faith and walk of life."
Obama, the wife of Democratic President Barack Obama, told the graduates that "with your glorious diversity, with your remarkable accomplishments and your deep commitment to your communities, you all embody the very purpose of this school's founding."
She made a thinly veiled reference to Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, by saying "some folks" don't value the diversity that City College embodies.
"They seem to view our diversity as a threat to be contained rather than as a resource to be tapped," Obama said. "They tell us to be afraid of those who are different, to be suspicious of those with whom we disagree.
"They act as if name-calling is an acceptable substitute for thoughtful debate, as if anger and intolerance should be our default state rather than the optimism and openness that have always been the engine of our progress."
Trump has promised to build a wall between the United States and Mexico, proposed banning Muslims from entering the U.S. and said it's risky to take in Syrian refugees because terrorists could be among them.
Obama added that "here in America, we don't give in to our fears. We don't build up walls to keep people out because we know that our greatness has always depended on contributions from people who were born elsewhere but sought out this country and made it their home."
City College, founded as the Free Academy of the City of New York in 1847, gained a reputation as the poor man's Harvard in the 1930s, when it educated a generation of Jewish intellectuals who were shut out of elite private colleges.
City College alumni include 10 Nobel Prize winners and many renowned authors, scientists, business leaders and artists.
More than 40 percent of City College's current students are first-generation college students and half are from low-income households.
More than 3,000 graduates and their families cheered the first lady's speech under drizzly skies at the City College campus in Harlem.
Class salutatorian Orruba Almansouri exemplified one of the issues Obama has championed, the education of girls. Almansouri, a Yemeni immigrant, said it was only after daily debates with her father that she was allowed to attend college, which no girl in her family had done before.
"I fought to be allowed to pursue an education, for the right to be here," Almansouri said.
She said that following her example, several of her female cousins are now pursuing higher education.
http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/First-Lady--381799061.htmlA slave coffle passing the Capitol grounds, 1815, published in A Popular History of the United States, 1876.
Construction on the President's House began in 1792 in Washington, D.C., a new capital situated in sparsely settled region far from a major population center. The decision to place the capital on land ceded by two slave states-Virginia and Maryland-ultimately influenced the acquisition of laborers to construct its public buildings.
The D.C. commissioners, charged by Congress with building the new city under the direction of the president, initially planned to import workers from Europe to meet their labor needs. However, response to recruitment was dismal and soon they turned to African American—enslaved and free—to provide the bulk of labor that built the White House, the United States Capitol, and other early government buildings.
Stonemason Collen Williamson trained enslaved people on the spot at the government's quarry at Aquia, Virginia. Enslaved people quarried and cut the rough stone that was later dressed and laid by Scottish masons to erect the walls of the President's House. The slaves joined a work force that included local white laborers and artisans from Maryland and Virginia, as well as immigrants from Ireland, Scotland, and other European nations.
National Archives and Records Administration
https://www.whitehousehistory.org/questions/did-slaves-build-the-white-houseThe payroll to slaveowners shows that the government did not own slaves, but that it did hire them from their masters. Slave carpenters Ben, Daniel, and Peter were noted as owned by James Hoban.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0PE_kC-3EYEarliest known photograph of the White House, taken c. 1846 by John Plumbe during the administration of James K. Polk.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_House
