Lawyer for Daughters of the American Revolution Threatens To Stop Compendium of Mixed and Full-Blooded African-Descended Revolutionary War Soldiers

Group shuns painful history that should be a source of unity instead of denial

Washington, D.C. (PRWEB) March 21, 2003 -- The National Society Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) has contended for 17 years that soldiers described by the terms brown" and yellow," and other appellations, used to identify runaway slaves and color-classify persons of mixed African descent, could be white and, therefore, not eligible for inclusion in its 2001 publication, "African American and American Indian Patriots of the Revolutionary War."

Now, the group threatens to bolster its position with legal action according to a letter written by Washington lawyer Stuart Philip Ross (Ross, Dixon & Bell, L.L.P.) who represents the 175,000 member organization. NSDAR aims finally to put to rest the very same issue … that we believe previously had been fully resolved."

The soldiers identification project was undertaken to satisfy a settlement agreement with Lena Santos Ferguson, a Washington, D.C. woman, who had been denied DAR membership, from 1980 to 1984, because she is black and descended from Revolutionary war ancestors who are white.

Far from resolution, "Mrs. Ferguson's legally-binding agreement requires the DAR to identify ‘all the black soldiers, not just the ones acceptable to the group's sensibilities," according to Maurice A. Barboza, her nephew, and the recipient of Mr. Rosss admonition. Mr. Barboza had conducted the family's genealogical research and wants to ensure that all the proven black soldiers receive the recognition his aunt intended.

The DAR knows more about the race of 250-year-old dead men than the officers and recruiters who recorded their complexions as they were mustered into General Washingtons Army," Mr. Barboza says. Later, this data was preserved in readily-available primary research, such as ‘Massachusetts Soldiers and Sailors of the Revolutionary War, which sits on the DARs million-volume library shelves where its genealogists work daily."

For almost two decades, Mrs. Ferguson waged a lonely campaign to prod the DAR to fulfill its commitment, as she confronted attempts by the group to scuttle the work, and claim it was resolved," including the firing of a prominent black genealogist, who reported he had found evidence of more soldiers than anyone had previously thought existed.

Mr. Barboza says, "the DAR fears that some members, past or present, could be descended from those soldiers. They want no reminders of miscegenation or the flight from bondage, and second class citizenship, to whiteness made by generations of light-skinned African-Americans hoping to insulate their families and descendants from Jim Crow."

He explained to current President General Linda Tinker Watkins that he would publish "all" the soldiers names, with or without DAR approval, including hundreds the group shunned because their mixed-race heritage was unacceptable. DAR members' claim to fame," Barboza says, "is that lily white paternity they have defended since black contralto Marian Anderson was denied the opportunity to perform at Constitution Hall in 1939."

Undeterred, Mr. Barboza says, "I guess they will defend it in federal court, as Mr. Ross tells me that if the mixed-race soldiers' names are published, along with those found tolerably black" by the DAR, the group will use the 'full extent of the law' to protect its rights."

In contrast, Mrs. Ferguson had eschewed legal action herself in 1984, choosing instead to settle on the condition that the DAR agree to identify all" the black soldiers. She hoped to avoid divisiveness and "educate" the group by building an understanding of this painful history that would be a source of unity -- instead of denial, prejudice, and threatened law suits.