LETTER: America was built on slavery?

George Evashwick Bullhead City, Arizona

2 years ago

In this Wednesday, June 24, 2020, photograph, a woman walks past a mural in tribute to Frederic ... — In this Wednesday, June 24, 2020, photograph, a woman walks past a mural in tribute to Frederick Douglass on the exterior wall of the Black-owned Slade’s Bar and Grill in the South End neighborhood of Boston. Many from outside Boston have recently ordered takeout, purchased gift cards and supported the restaurant amid nationwide protests against racism. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

In his March 12 letter, “Wide awoke,” David Stahl states that this country “was built on the backs of slave labor.” This is the very type of hyperbole, unsubstantiated by analytics, that progressive hysterics espouse.

Slavery was abolished in 1865, so it stands to reason that anything built or accomplished after that date was not the result of slave labor.

While I certainly don’t dispute the fact that, prior to 1865, Southern agriculture was primarily dependent on slave labor, for Mr. Stahl to assert that the rest of the country’s development depended on the same is, at best, a massive distortion of facts and, at worst, a bald-faced lie.

Neither is a problem for liberal propagandists.