This is the second of four lectures in America’s Architecture of Freedom and Unfreedom, the 74th A. W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts presented by Mabel O. Wilson of Columbia University.

This talk follows Andrew Ellicott, a mathematician and surveyor, and his team including free Black surveyor Benjamin Banneker, on their 1791 survey of the boundaries for the new Federal Territory between Virginia and Maryland. If the new territory and its yet to be planned capital, Washington City, functioned as an architectural symbol of unity between the 13 states and their commitment to uphold and protect the tenets of liberty through self-governance, then how did Banneker’s presence on the surveying team represent divergent beliefs around the natural rights of humans, especially the right to freedom?

The series continues on:
Sunday, March 23, 2:00 p.m.
Sunday, March 30, 2:00 p.m.