Political Lies, a Slave's Story, and a Damn Good Whiskey

There recently has been a firestorm of commentary created by Vice President Harris’ race-baiting lies about Florida schools.  She claims that they supposedly are whitewashing the story of slavery by allegedly teaching “that enslaved people benefited from slavery.”  The uproar arises from Florida’s middle school curriculum for teaching black history. But by attempting to score political points with her race-baiting, the Vice President denigrates the stories of slaves who overcame all obstacles to succeed in a trade or business. This is the story of one of those slaves.

Given the accusations by the Vice President and others of state-sponsored racism in Florida’s teaching curriculum, it is worth taking a minute or two to offer a brief description of the wicked teaching standards at issue. 

THE FLORIDA ACADEMIC STANDARDS

Florida is one of the small number of states that has mandated a black history educational curriculum.  The 215-page Academic Standards for middle school social studies is comprehensive.  It covers several broad topics, such as American History, African American History, Economics, Holocaust Education, and others. 

Just the portion on African American History includes hundreds of “benchmark” teaching points.  These require teachers, for example, to identify and recognize African American inventors, explorers, artists, and civic leaders and to describe such things as “the conditions for Africans during their passage to America,” the “the harsh conditions in the Virginia Colony,” plus “the contributions of African Americans to the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics” as well as poetry, music, literature, dance, and other arts. 

The benchmarks also tell teachers to “examine the range and variety of specialized roles performed by slaves,” including “the trades of slaves (e.g., musicians, healers, blacksmiths, carpenters, shoemakers, weavers, tailors, sawyers, hostlers, silversmiths, cobblers, wheelwrights, wigmakers, milliners, painters, coopers).” In short, Florida’s Teaching Standards provide a roadmap for a comprehensive study of slaves and slavery, as well as the struggles and successes of African Americans in the Americas.

Many of these benchmarks also include “Clarifications” that provide more detail regarding what is to be taught under pertaining to the general subject of the benchmark. 

THE OFFENDING SENTENCE

Consistent with that comprehensive approach, the one of the hundreds of benchmarks directs teachers to:

Examine the various duties and trades performed by slaves (e.g., agricultural work, painting, carpentry, tailoring, domestic service, blacksmithing, transportation).

Because the subject is the varied duties and trades performed by slaves, this obviously would show how much the total economy depended upon them. It then adds a single sentence as a “Clarification.” That sentence says:

Instruction includes how slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit. 

That’s it. That single sentence out of hundreds, even thousands of similar instructions in the Florida Standards, is what all the sound and fury is about.

That “clarification” is the sentence that someone on Kamala Harris’ staff brought to her attention and suggested that it was an evil for which the state’s governor must be held responsible.  Harris took it upon herself to claim that “Just yesterday in the state of Florida, they decided middle school students will be taught that enslaved people benefited from slavery.”  She added, in another case of projection, “They want to replace history with lies.”   

The Florida African American History Academic Standards do no such thing. Rather, they provide for a comprehensive look at all aspects of slavery, including its horrors and brutality as well as the extent to which the economy depended upon the involuntary servitude of peoples kidnapped from their homes in Africa.

Harris’ misrepresentations were intended to wound a political opponent, but they also have the effect of denigrating the success stories of hardworking, resourceful slaves who succeeded in overcoming all obstacles to make a life for themselves and even generations of their descendants.

A SLAVE’S STORY

As I read about the brouhaha caused by the Vice President and thought about whether some slaves learned trades or skills that benefited them, the story of one Tennessee slave came to mind. This story is not intended to detract from the horrors or slavery, the heart-rending stories of forced family separations, brutal whippings, the unspeakable cruelty of the slave ships making the middle passage, and even crueler punishments.  Nor is it intended to  sugar-coat the daily hardships endured by field slaves and all slaves for that matter, as a matter of course.  Nevertheless, it is a story worth telling. Stories like it and others like it are a legitimate part of African American history and of a school curriculum.   

Nathan Green was born a slave in the early 1800’s.  His story is told here, here, and in a must-see video here. He lived as a slave on a farm owned by Reverend Dan Call.  In addition to being a Lutheran minister, Reverend Call had a nice little side business going on – a whiskey distillery. Call’s Master Distiller was none other than the slave, Nathan Green, who was hired out to him by Nathan’s owner.  Nathan was also known by the nickname “Nearest.”

Sometime in the mid-1800’s a young orphan named Jasper Daniel also went to work on the Call farm. Times were hard then, as were the people: Jasper was only seven years old when he went to work on the Call farm.  By this time, Nathan had enough grey hair that he was known as “Uncle Nearest.” From the time he was young, Jasper worked as an apprentice to Uncle Nearest, learning the whiskey business. (This reminds me of one of my favorite former legal clients who owned of a bail bonding business. He had been raised in southeast Kentucky. In a deposition, when asked a standard preliminary question about his work history, he responded: “I first started working when I was five. My daddy kinda ran the rough side of town.  He was a moonshiner and I hepped him.”).

EMANCIPATION AND SUCCESS

After the end of the Civil War and the ratification of the 13^th Amendment, Nathan continued to work as a distiller.  By this time, young Jasper Daniel had mastered the distillery trade and had developed an entrepreneurial talent.  The Reverend Call ultimately sold the distillery to Jasper, and Uncle Nearest continued as his highly respected Master Distiller.

Under Nathan’s supervision Jasper’s distillery’s reputation spread. As it became famous for producing the finest Tennessee whiskey, Jasper’s distillery became known by the name that he commonly used – Jack. Thus, the former slave, Nathan Green, was the first Master Distiller of one of the most famous American whiskeys, Jack Daniel’s. 

GENERATIONS OF HARD WORK AND SUCCESS

Many of Nathan’s descendants also continued to work for Jack Daniel’s Distillery and do so to this day. Then in 2016 a new distillery was formed. It is the fastest-growing American whiskey brand in history and the most successful Black-owned distillery in the world. Its name?  “Uncle Nearest.”

 Its board was comprised of all minorities, including direct descendants of the distillery’s namesake, Uncle Nearest. Its Master Blender today?  Uncle Nearest’s great, great granddaughter, Victoria Butler.

The single sentence that is the focus of the Vice President’s race baiting – “Instruction includes how slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit – is undeniably true. Kamala Harris and her fellow travelers are working themselves up into a lather over an undeniably true statement.  And, contrary to their misinformation, it does not purport to teach that slaves benefited from slavery. Rather, while all slaves suffered, some ultimately benefited. That benefit was because of their own hard work and courage not because of slavery.  And, as the story of Uncle Nearest teaches us, succeeding generations also benefited, not from slavery, but from their ancestors’ hard work.