George Washington, Slavery, and America’s Historical Memory

For nearly the entirety of our history, Americans have been arguing about George Washington and slavery. Drawing on research from his latest book, historian John Garrison Marks will explore how generations of Americans have remembered, forgotten, manipulated, and wielded Washington’s entanglements with slavery over the past 250 years. As both a prolific enslaver for his entire life as well as the emancipator of more than 120 of the people he enslaved, George Washington’s complex relationship with slavery has vexed Americans for centuries. Time and again, we’ve struggled to agree upon slavery’s place in Washington’s legacy. In this lecture, Marks will explore how abolitionists, politicians, educators, museum professionals, descendants of slavery at Mount Vernon, and countless others have all fought to shape our collective memory of George Washington and slavery over the last two centuries—and what those fights reveal about our ongoing struggle to reckon with the past. Dr. John Garrison Marks is a historian and writer exploring the United States’ histories of race, slavery, and public memory. He earned his Ph.D. in history from Rice University. Marks currently works as the Vice President of Research and Engagement for the American Association for State and Local History. His writing has appeared in the Washington Post, TIME, Smithsonian Magazine, and elsewhere.