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November 13, 2007
WASHINGTON (AP) — The House on Tuesday agreed to name the largest room in the new Capitol Visitor Center in honor of the slaves who helped build the U.S. Capitol. Under the measure, the room would be called Emancipation Hall.
Lawmakers have been looking for a way to honor the slaves that were used in the construction of government buildings including the Capitol and the White House. The House passed the bill 398-6.
The Senate now must consider the bill.
"What Emancipation Hall will do is to make Americans want to know more about how much of our country was built on the backs of slave labor," said Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton of the District of Columbia. "Emancipation Hall is the place to do it, because the visitors center itself is going to be a giant temple for education about our country, about our capitol and about what has happened in this building."
"Naming the great hall of the Capitol Visitor Center as Emancipation Hall would serve to recognize both the brutal truth of our nation's past and the importance of freedom as a pillar of modern America," said Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.
A congressional task force has also recommended that the role of slaves in the construction of the Capitol be included in guided tours, educational materials, exhibits, plaques and showcases in the Capitol Visitor Center, which is scheduled to be completed next November.
Originally, the room inside the center under construction was supposed to be named the Great Hall. Rep. Zach Wamp, R-Tenn., said the Library of Congress — which sits across the street from the Capitol — already has an ornate room with that name.
"Let us send a message to people that come to this Capitol that emancipation lives on and was such an important moment in the learning process of this experiment in freedom and democracy known as the American republic," Wamp said.
The room to be named Emancipation Hall in the underground center is expected to have information and ticketing desks and allow visitors to view the Capitol Dome through skylights.
Slaves worked 12-hour days, six days a week on the Capitol, Felicia Bell, the director of education and outreach for the United States Historical Society, told a House subcommittee last week. The federal government rented the slaves from local slave owners at a rate of $5 per person per month, she said. The slaves were not paid.
William Allen, the architectural historian of the Architect of the Capitol's office, added that 385 payments for slave labor at the Capitol between 1795 and 1801 have been found.
Allen said slaves worked in quarries where they extracted the stone for the building. Other slaves provided carpentry skills, and others were used for sawing stone and timber.
Slave women and children were used to mold clay in kilns, Allen said.
The bill numbers are H.R. 3315 and S. 1679.
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