this post was submitted on 26 Feb 2026
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If Washington was alive today he’d ask how all those slaves were walking around in public. You don’t get much more non-woke than a slave owner.
And for anyone who cites his writing about how bad it made him feel, imagine how the humans he held in bondage that was enforced by multiple layers of brutal violence felt, and reflect that for Washington’s purported struggle he somehow never landed on “grant them their freedom.”
Considering that most of the last year of his life was consumed by him attempting to sell his estate and and making plans to (ideally) purchase the dower slaves he did not legally own, but who formed families with the slaves that he did, in the interest of granting them all their freedom? And when he unexpectedly and quickly died, his will freed all the slaves he did own?
You can say it's still insufficient, and you're not wrong. But "he somehow never landed on grant them their freedom" isn't it.
He also implemented the first non-segregated units in the US military and was a supporter of the abolition of slavery, so I doubt he would be asking about where 'slaves' got 'gold chains'.