Ep. 100 Benjamin Banneker: How An Impressive Human Being Was Transformed Into a Mythic Folk Hero

In this episode, we'll uncover the truly impressive accomplishments of Benjamin Banneker, a free Black man living in rural Maryland in the 1700s. Banneker was a self taught astronomer who helped to lay out the boundary for the construction of Washington DC. He also built his own working clock and wrote and published almanacs for the years 1792 to 1797. He also called Thomas Jefferson out for being a hypocrite, my personal favorite accomplishment. But, despite all of the truly impressive things he really did, he's mostly remembered for things he did not do: planning the city of Washington DC, constructing the first clock in America, writing the first almanac in America, etc. Join me to examine how and why his already impressive enough real life accomplishments have been embellished by historical telephone. Let's fix that. 

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Sources: 

• "The Life of Benjamin Banneker" by Silvio Bedini
• The White House Historical Association "Benjamin Banneker the Black Tobacco Farmer Who the Presidents Couldn't Ignore"
• Wikipedia "Benjamin Banneker"
• Wikipedia "Mythology of Benjamin Banneker"
• Encyclopedia Britannica "Pierre Charles L'Enfant"