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On 25 July 2016, First Lady Michelle Obama gave a well-received speech amid what was otherwise a contentious night at the Democratic National Convention, during which she asserted that the White House had been built by slaves. The remark was a relatively minor detail in Mrs. Obama's larger commentary about progress in the United States: The First Lady made the remarks at around the 11:20 mark: In June 2005, Congress commissioned a study [PDF] that looked into slave labor and Washington D.C.-area landmarks. In the foreword, U.S. Senate historian Richard Baker explained that it had been extremely difficult to uncover the details, because slaves were not considered important to the history of the United States at that time: According to the paper, slavery was legal in Washington D.C. until April 1862, making it impossible to imagine that enslaved people would not have built and maintained buildings there. A pro-emancipation broadside from 1836 condemned the practice of slavery in the nation's capital: Jesse Holland, a reporter, researcher, and author of the book The Invisibles: The Untold Story of African American Slaves in the White House, said that his own research indicated that at least two-thirds of laborers who worked on the U.S. Capitol building (and by extension, the White House) were slaves: A lot of people don’t think about it, but the White House is a mansion in a southern area, Holland told us: The White House Historical Association reports that although the government did not own slaves outright, they did hire them from slave owners: Slaves didn't exclusively build the White House or other monuments; but a review of historical accounts reveals they had a large role in that construction, one which went almost completely unnoticed and unrecorded for many years.
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