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      David Dinkins obituary

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      David Dinkins, the first black mayor of New York City, who has died aged 93, was in many ways the right man at the wrong time. His single term as mayor of the city he called “a gorgeous mosaic”, from 1990 until 1993, was a period of chaos for New York, consumed by a then-huge deficit of $1.8bn, the flight of business and money, a soaring murder rate and the seeming constant provocation of racial and ethnic conflict. Dinkins’ political personality was that of a conciliator, cautious and dignified, which contrasted starkly with his predecessor, Ed Koch, and indeed his successor, Rudy Giuliani, both of whom were as aggressive, abrasive and assertive as the population they represented.This image had been Dinkins’ selling point in 1989 to New York’s Democratic party. But during his mayoralty, as New York’s melting pot became a crucible, Dinkins was unable to make the sort of crucial gesture that might have calmed the city, like John Lindsay’s walk through Harlem in 1968 after Martin Luther King’s assassination sparked riots in other cities.Dinkins was born in Trenton, New Jersey, where his father, William, was a barber. When his parents divorced, David moved to Harlem with his mother, Sally (nee Lucy), a domestic worker. Eventually he and his sister, Joyce, returned to Trenton, where he attended high school, and discovered segregation, which he had not experienced in New York – the school’s swimming pool was not open to black people.After graduation he wanted to join the Marine Corps, but found the “negro quota” filled. He entered the army and managed to transfer to the Marines, becoming one of the “Montford Point” recruits who integrated the corps. Discharged in 1946, he entered Howard University in Washington, one of the elite traditionally black colleges, where he graduated with an honours degree in mathematics. When his college sweetheart, Joyce Burrows, graduated in 1953, they married and moved to New York. Dinkins attended law school at Brooklyn College, getting his degree in 1956. In the meantime, he worked in a liquor store for his father-in-law, Daniel, a property magnate in Harlem and a powerful figure within Tammany Hall, the Democratic power structure in the city.While Dinkins was opening a private law practice, his father-in-law introduced him to the Carver Democratic Club, run by J Raymond Jones, “The Harlem Fox”, under whose mentorship Dinkins became one of the so-called “Gang of Four”, the group of rising young black politicians that also included the future US congressman Charles Rangel, the Manhattan borough president Percy Sutton and deputy mayor (under Koch) Basil Patterson.In 1965 Dinkins was elected to the state assembly, but in the face of redistricting, he did not run for a second term. Instead, he worked his way up through administrative positions. In 1973, he became the first black president of the city’s Board of Elections, and was credited with widening the voter base. The mayor, Abe Beame, nominated him as a deputy, which led to the revelation that Dinkins had failed to file tax returns for four years. This “oversight” was rectified, but it scuppered his nomination. In 1975 Beame appointed him city clerk, an influential position he held until 1985, when he won, on his third attempt, election as Manhattan’s borough president.Koch had originally been elected mayor in 1978, after running as a reformer against Tammany Hall, but in 1989 he was seeking an unprecedented fourth term following mammoth corruption scandals, and had also angered New York’s black community with his opposition to Jesse Jackson’s presidential campaign. That April the city was rocked by an attack on a white female jogger in Central Park, which led to the arrest of five black and Hispanic youths (13 years later their convictions were overturned when the real rapist confessed). Shortly before the primary in August that would decide the Democratic candidate, Yusuf Hawkins, a black 16-year-old, was shot dead by a gang of white youths who attacked him in their Brooklyn neighbourhood of Bensonhurst.In the face of massive racial tension, Dinkins was seen as a voice of reason, and he easily won the primary over Koch. In the election he faced Giuliani, whose reputation as a mafia-busting US attorney led him to adopt a strong law-and-order platform. Although Democrats held an almost five to one advantage in voter registrations, Giuliani added the endorsement of New York’s Liberal party, which helped him win more than half of Koch’s voters. Dinkins was elected by a margin of only 46,000 votes, 51% to 48%, and New York became the last of America’s 10 largest cities to elect a black mayor. In his inaugural address, he spoke of “a new coalition of conscience and purpose”.Taking office in the middle of a recession, with 357,000 private jobs gone and federal aid cut, Dinkins had a difficult time keeping campaign promises in the face of a tightening budget, and was forced to raise city taxes. He moved to improve public housing, and to keep libraries open while cutting other programmes. He did a deal with the Disney corporation to help clean up Times Square, and another to keep the US Open Tennis in Queens. With a murder rate approaching 2,000 per year, he appointed a black police commissioner, Lee Brown, who came in from Atlanta and Houston with a reputation as a reformer. But while Dinkins waited for Brown to report, the city again exploded.In August 1990, a tourist attending the US Open Tennis was stabbed to death on a subway platform. Dinkins announced a massive increase in the number of uniformed police. A few months later, the city was split by a black boycott of Korean-owned grocery stores, when a Korean-American owner accused a Haitian-American customer of shoplifting.Finally, in August 1991, the keg burst as a driver in a motorcade taking the head of a Lubavitcher Orthodox Jewish sect through Crown Heights in Brooklyn swerved on to a sidewalk and killed a seven-year-old black boy, Gavin Cato. Hours later, a group of black youths killed an Australian rabbinical student. The two killings prompted almost five days of rioting, with black citizens protesting over the boy’s death and Jewish groups claiming the police were failing to protect them.Although an independent investigation in 1993 cleared Dinkins against charges of withholding police aid, it did criticise his relative lack of action. By then it was too late to heal the wounds. Giuliani turned the tables on him and took a larger percentage of the white vote and he won his rematch in the mayoralty race that November.In 1998 Giuliani and the city settled a lawsuit against the city by Jewish organisations, with the mayor calling Dinkins’ response “inadequate”. Dinkins invited Giuliani to dinner, saying: “I extend my hand to him in brotherhood,” but Giuliani declined this Obama-like gesture. In his 2013 memoir, A Mayor’s Life: Governing New York’s Gorgeous Mosaic (written with Peter Knobler), Dinkins called Giuliani a “cold, unkind person who practised the politics of boundless ambition”.After leaving office, Dinkins was a professor in the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University, and hosted a radio talk show. A keen tennis player, he served on the board of the US Tennis Association. He remained active in politics, and in 2013 supported his former aide Bill de Blasio in his successful campaign for election as mayor.Dinkins’ wife died in October. He is survived by his son, David, and daughter, Donna.• David Norman Dinkins, politician, born 10 July 1927; died 23 November 2020 More

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      Columbia students threaten to withhold tuition fees amid Covid protest

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      Almost 1,800 students at Columbia University in New York are threatening to withhold tuition fees next year, in the latest signal to US academia of widespread preparedness to act on demands to reduce costs and address social justice issues relating to labor, investments and surrounding communities.In a letter to trustees and administrators of Columbia, Barnard College and Teachers College, the students said: “The university is acutely failing its students and the local community.”They accused the university of “inaction” since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic in March, when students began demonstrating against what they say are exorbitant tuition rates “which constitute a significant source of financial hardship during this economic depression”.The letter referred to national protests over structural racism, accusing the university of failing to act on demands to address “its own role in upholding racist policing practices, damaging local communities and inadequately supporting Black students”.Emmaline Bennett, chair of the Columbia-Barnard Young Democratic Socialists of America and a master’s student at Teachers College, told the Guardian the university and other colleges had made no effort to reduce tuition fees as they moved to remote learning models necessitated by pandemic conditions.“We think it says a lot about the profit motive of higher education, even as the economy is in crisis and millions of people are facing unemployment,” Bennett said. “This is especially true of Columbia, which is one of the most expensive universities in the US.”Demands outlined in the letter include reducing the cost of attendance by at least 10%, increasing financial aid by the same percentage and replacing fees with grants.Such reforms, the letter said, should not come at the expense of instructor or worker pay, but rather at the expense of bloated administrative salaries, expansion projects and other expenses that do not directly benefit students and workers.The university, the letter said, must invest in community safety solutions that prioritise the safety of Black students, and “commit to complete transparency about the University’s investments and respect the democratic votes of the student body regarding investment and divestment decisions – including divestment from companies involved in human rights violations and divesting fully from fossil fuels.“These issues are united by a shared root cause: a flagrant disregard for initiatives democratically supported within the community. Your administration’s unilateral decision-making process has perpetuated the existence of these injustices in our community despite possessing ample resources to confront them with structural solutions.“Should the university continue to remain silent in the face of the pressing demands detailed below, we and a thousand of fellow students are prepared to withhold tuition payments for the Spring semester and not to donate to the university at any point in the future.”A Columbia spokesperson said: “Throughout this difficult year, Columbia has remained focused on preserving the health and safety of our community, fulfilling our commitment to anti-racism, providing the education sought by our students and continuing the scientific and other research needed to overcome society’s serious challenges.”The university has frozen undergraduate tuition fees and allowed greater flexibility in coursework over three terms. It has also, it said, adopted Covid-related provisions including an off-campus living allowance of $4,000 per semester, to help with living and technology expenses related to remote learning.Columbia is not alone in facing elevated student demands. In late August, for example, students at the University of Chicago staged a week-long picket of the provost’s house as part of a campaign to disband the university police department, Chicago’s largest private force.The issue of student debt remains challenging. In a nod to progressives, President-elect Joe Biden last month affirmed his support for a US House measure which would erase up to $10,000 in private, non-federal loan debt for distressed individuals.Biden highlighted “people … having to make choices between paying their student loan and paying the rent” and said such debt relief “should be done immediately”.Some Democrats say relief should go further. In September, Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer and Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren co-authored a resolution which called for the next president to cancel up to $50,000 of outstanding federal loans per borrower.At Columbia, students say their demands for Covid-related fee reductions are only a starting point.“In the long-term, we need to reform the educational system entirely,” said Bennett. “We need to make all universities and colleges free, and to cancel all student debt to prevent enduring educational and economic inequalities.” More

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      in US Politics

      US Covid cases, hospitalisations and deaths rise amid Thanksgiving rush

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      The US reported 181,490 new coronavirus cases on Wednesday, a third daily rise in a row, as hospitalisations hit a record for a 16th day in succession, at 89,959.
      There were 2,297 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University, the largest single-day rise since May, bringing the pandemic toll to 262,065 out of nearly 12.8m cases. The death rate is still lower than in the spring.
      The alarming numbers were reported as millions of Americans defied official advice against travel and gatherings for Thanksgiving.
      In an address to the nation on Wednesday, Joe Biden appealed for resilience and sympathised with those contemplating a holiday without loved ones.
      “I know this time of year can be especially difficult,” said the president-elect, whose wife and daughter were killed in a car crash in December 1972. “Believe me, I know. I remember that first Thanksgiving. The empty chair, silence that takes your breath away. It’s really hard to care. It’s hard to give thanks … It’s so hard to hope, to understand.
      “I’ll be thinking and praying for each and every one of you this Thanksgiving.”
      Biden’s transition team were unable to coordinate with federal authorities for two weeks after the election was called, as Donald Trump refused to concede. The president still has not taken that step, but has allowed transition funds to be released.
      Biden heralded the approach of apparently effective vaccines. The US was “on track for the first immunisations to begin by late December, early January”, he said.
      “We’ll need to put in place a distribution plan to get the entire country immunised as soon as possible, which we will do. It’s going to take time. And hopefully the news of the vaccine will serve as incentive to every American to take simple steps to get control of the virus.”
      Biden listed such steps, including wearing a mask, social distancing and more, which the Trump administration has been loath to seek to enforce, even at its own events. Trump, members of his family, aides and senior Republicans have fallen sick.
      “There’s real hope,” Biden insisted. “Tangible hope.”
      Later, in Washington, the newly 6-3 conservative supreme court sided with religious communities who sued to block New York state Covid restrictions on attendance at houses of worship. Amy Coney Barrett, the devout Catholic justice who replaced Ruth Bader Ginsburg last month, sided with other conservatives on the ruling.
      Avi Schick, an attorney for Agudath Israel of America, told the Associated Press: “This is an historic victory. This landmark decision will ensure that religious practices and religious institutions will be protected from government edicts that do not treat religion with the respect demanded by the constitution.”
      On Wednesday, New York saw more than 6,000 daily Covid cases for the first time since late April. Pennsylvania recorded more than 7,000 cases, its second-highest total since the pandemic began. Massachusetts and Nevada saw record case numbers.
      In Wyoming, the Republican governor, Mark Gordon, has opposed a mask mandate. On Wednesday, it was announced that he had tested positive.
      US airports saw around 900,000 to 1 million people a day pass through checkpoints from Friday to Tuesday, down around 60% from last year but some of the biggest crowds seen since the pandemic took hold. Typically, more Americans drive for Thanksgiving than fly.
      Officials – among them New York’s governor, Andrew Cuomo – have been forced to cancel their own Thanksgiving plans in order to set an example. One who did not, Denver’s mayor, Michael Hancock, issued an apology on Wednesday.
      Having asked city staff and residents to avoid holiday travel, Hancock flew to Mississippi to spend the holiday with his wife and youngest daughter.
      “I made my decision as a husband and father,” he said, “and for those who are angry and disappointed, I humbly ask you to forgive decisions that are born of my heart and not my head.” More

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      Will New York's elite give Ivanka and Jared a warm welcome or the cold shoulder?

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      In the purgatory of Donald Trump’s unacknowledged election defeat, the knives are out for Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump who, like dozens of other lesser-placed Trump acolytes, may be looking to return to New York, a city that the lame-duck president calls an “anarchic jurisdiction”.
      The reception they will receive, judging from the city’s press commentary, could be brutal.
      “They are the Faustian poster couple of the Trump presidency, the king and queen of the principle-torching prom at which so many danced alongside them, although in less exquisitely tailored attire,” wrote Frank Bruni in the New York Times this week.
      Posing a question broadly to what he called “the whole shockingly populous court of collaborators”, Bruno addressed the couple directly: “Tell me, Jared. Be honest, Ivanka. Was it worth it?”
      The answer, of course, is one for the couple alone to answer. But that hasn’t stopped others from offering their thoughts. “I see them as Glenn Close at the end of Dangerous Liaisons, with the entire opera house jeering,” says Jill Kargman, creator and star of Odd Mom Out, a highly praised TV comedy that skewered the Ivanka-style perfectionism of Upper East Side mothers.
      Andrea Bernstein, a WNYC investigative reporter and author of American Oligarchs: The Kushners, the Trumps, and the Marriage of Money and Power, says it’s not clear that they plan to return to New York, since the Kushner family real estate empire is now focused in the mid-Atlantic states and his wife no longer runs a fashion accessories business.
      Moreover, Bernstein points out, twin New York city and state investigations into Ivanka’s $780,000 in Azerbaijani consulting fees, the on-the-record skewering by former Manhattan friends and increased politicization (she joined the rightwing chat site Parler this week) suggest Democratic New York may not be an optimal place to relocate.
      “I don’t see any indication they are coming back or would be welcome back here,” Bernstein says. “The investigations are a symbol of the problems the family could face back in New York, while the article in Vanity Fair was interesting not for what it said, but that the author said it so publicly.”
      If they do return, they will probably arrive in New York during another period of Covid restrictions. Restaurants are limited to 25% capacity and four per table, the charity and museum gala circuit upon which New York society revolves is on pause, and so opportunities to express the chill of social ostracism may be limited.
      “They’ll have to come back to Republican New York because they won’t be welcomed in liberal quarters,” says New York Times styles writer David Colman.
      “The interesting part is: will organisations that are essentially apolitical, like the Metropolitan Museum of Art – already sitting on pots of money from the Koch brothers – the Frick Collection or the Audubon Society, accept their donation and put them on a table?”
      The Kushners, Colman predicts, will give money to hospitals, medical charities and do something with sick children – “things people can’t get mad at” – and spend time in the Hamptons, the expensive getaway for the rich and powerful. “And she’ll distance herself from her father because he’s going to stay his crazy, fulminating self on Twitter.”
      Top New York hairdresser John Barrett says Ivanka will face no trouble if she chooses to return. “America is all about second acts, and there’s always somebody trying to advance a position or cause. Obviously, some people have been burnt by the administration, but it’ll take very little time for them to buy their way back pretty and rule a certain roost.”
      Not all are so accommodating. One former friend told Vanity Fair’s Emily Jane Fox: “They’ll be welcomed back by people who know the Trumps are as close as they’ll get to power. But everyone with self-respect, a career, morals, respect for democracy, or who doesn’t want their friends to shame them both in private and public will steer clear.” More

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      Covid rampages across US, unifying a splintered nation as cases surge

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      The Disunited States of America are united once more. After a brutal election that exacerbated bitter partisan divisions and left the country feeling as though it had been torn in two, it has at last been thrown back together.For all the wrong reasons.The great leveler is coronavirus. Covid-19 is rampaging across the US as though it were on a personal mission to unify the splintered nation in an unfolding catastrophe. Of the 50 states of the Union, all but one – isolated Hawaii – is seeing alarming surges in new cases. The virus is on the rise so uniformly across the vast landmass of the US, that records are being shattered daily.Almost 12m cases have been recorded. In just one day the US notched up 184,000 new cases – six times the total number of infections in South Korea since the pandemic began.Almost 80,000 Americans are currently in hospital fighting for their lives, and the death rate is soaring inexorably towards 2,000 a day – close to the peak reached in April.This week the country passed the grimmest landmark so far: 250,000 dead Americans. And already the total has gone up significantly beyond that tragic milestone.As Michael Osterholm, a member of the coronavirus advisory team assembled by Joe Biden, put it: “We are in the most dangerous public health period since 1918.”The result of this terrifying march of untrammeled disease is that panic has begun to set in at state level. Governors and mayors from coast to coast have been scrambling to batten down the hatches, from New York City where the country’s largest public schools system was closed on Thursday barely two months after it reopened, to California where governor Gavin Newsom announced he was “pulling the emergency brake”.It is in the heartland states that the true horror of the current crisis is unfolding. Here Donald Trump’s historic mishandling of the pandemic is coming home to roost.Across the midwest, Trump’s playbook towards Covid-19 has been avidly embraced by Republican governors, from Kristi Noem in South Dakota, to Pete Ricketts in Nebraska, Kim Reynolds in Iowa, and Mike Parson in Missouri. They have mimicked the president’s relentless downplaying of the virus, lying about the pandemic being under control, and spurning of mask wearing.The results are now plain to see – runaway infection levels, staggering positivity rates and hospitals at breaking point.Only now, when the virus is pummeling the midwest like a tornado, have some of the Republican governors begrudgingly begun to change tack. Take Reynolds, the pro-Trump governor of Iowa. More

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      in Elections

      Ivanka Trump calls New York fraud inquiries 'harassment'

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      Authorities conducting fraud investigations into Donald Trump and his businesses are reportedly looking at consulting fees that may have gone to his daughter Ivanka Trump, prompting her to accuse them of “harassment”.The New York Times said there were twin New York investigations, one criminal and one civil.The criminal inquiry, led by the Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus Vance Jr, and a civil investigation by the state attorney general, Letitia James, are just some of many legal challenges that will probably face the president and his family business when he returns to being a private citizen. The report provoked a sharp response from Trump’s eldest daughter, who is a senior presidential adviser.“This is harassment pure and simple,” Ivanka Trump said on Twitter, linking to the report in the New York Times. “This ‘inquiry’ by NYC democrats is 100% motivated by politics, publicity and rage. They know very well that there’s nothing here and that there was no tax benefit whatsoever. These politicians are simply ruthless.”The Times, which said the two investigations have subpoenaed the Trump Organization in recent weeks, follows publication of Trump’s long-sought tax records and revelations that he personally guaranteed debt running into the hundreds of millions that could soon be called in or come due.Trump’s financial and legal stresses appear to be mounting. Earlier this month, Reuters reported that Trump’s main lender, Deutsche Bank, is looking for ways to end its relationship with the president.Deutsche Bank has about $340m in loans outstanding to the Trump Organization, the president’s umbrella group that is currently overseen by his two sons. The loans, which are against Trump properties and start coming due in two years, are current on payments and personally guaranteed by the president, according Reuters.Among the latest revelations is that he reduced his tax exposure by deducting about $26m in fees to unidentified consultants as a business expense on several projects in the past decade.Some of those fees, the Times said, appear to have been paid to Ivanka Trump, including a payment of $747,622 from a consulting company that exactly matched consulting fees claimed as tax deductions by the Trump Organization.Trump Organization counsel Alan Garten described the development as “just the latest fishing expedition in an ongoing attempt to harass the company”.Details of the twin investigations have been scarce. The Manhattan DA’s inquiry was originally focused on Trump Organization payments to the porn star Stormy Daniels ahead of the Trump’s 2016 election victory but has since expanded to include insurance and bank-related fraud, tax evasion and grand larceny.The civil investigation began earlier this year after Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen told Congress that the president had boosted the value of his assets to secure bank loans and reduced them for tax purposes.In a TV interview this month, James, the New York attorney general, said the outcome of this month’s election was irrelevant to the investigations. She said: “We will just follow the facts and the evidence, wherever they lead us.”But Trump has dismissed the investigations as “the greatest witch-hunt in history”. More

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      'I don't care what you think': Cuomo lashes out at reporters at Covid briefing

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      [embedded content]
      Watching Andrew Cuomo’s coronavirus press briefings was once a household ritual for many in the US and around the world. But on Wednesday, the New York governor lost his cool.
      Things turned tense when Cuomo was pressed by a reporter about news that the New York City public school system – the largest in the US – would likely close on Thursday due to rising infections.
      Cuomo, who seemed unaware of the news, berated the reporter, who asked him to clarify whether or not New York parents should expect to send their kids to class on Thursday. “Let’s try not to be obnoxious and offensive in your tone,” he told the Wall Street Journal reporter Jimmy Vielkind.
      Covid-19 cases are spiking across the US, with deaths surpassing a quarter-million on Wednesday and hospitals throughout the country once again overwhelmed by patients.
      Cuomo declined to clarify whether the state would override city orders shutting down classrooms, and when the New York Times’ Jesse McKinley, who followed up, said “I think Jimmy’s correct in asking that question. I don’t think it’s obnoxious at all,” Cuomo retorted: “Well, I don’t really care what you think.”
      In March and April, when coronavirus cases first exploded across New York, Cuomo earned a reputation for delivering daily briefings that included not just updates on the latest case numbers, but also musings about how crisis can bring out the best in humanity, worries about how his ageing mother would fare through the pandemic and stern lectures to youngsters thinking about flouting the rules.
      Cuomo’s lively, empathetic delivery earned him fans. The comedian Chelsea Handler declared, “I’m officially attracted to Andrew Cuomo” and officials across the political spectrum praised his leadership.
      But on Wednesday, the governor’s outburst earned him no admirers. “Cuomo is offering a really embarrassing and condescending answer to a totally legitimate question about what’s happening” with schools, tweeted the Chalkbeat NY reporter Alex Zimmerman.
      “Parents are confused. Reporters are confused. Workers are confused. Kids are confused!” said Jessica Ramos, a Democratic state senator. “Cuomo? Not confused. Also, doesn’t recognize or care that you’re confused.”
      The governor’s performance also drew comparisons to Al Pacino and Martin Scorsese film characters.

      Scott Wolf
      (@scottwolf)
      Pacino is a lock for next years Oscars. His Cuomo is UNCANNY. 🙌🏻🎭 https://t.co/FqKuVtPEdx

      November 18, 2020

      Others lamented the logic of allowing bars, restaurants and gyms to remain operational while shuttering schools.

      Jessica Winter
      (@winterjessica)
      Can the kids go to school in restaurants

      November 18, 2020

      “Thinking tonight of all the New York City parents who just found out today that schools are closed starting tomorrow, even though schools have proven to be quite safe and bars and restaurants are still open,” said Dr Colleen M Farrell, a pulmonary and critical care fellow Weill Cornell Medicine. “This burden will, yet again, fall largely on women.”
      Cuomo, who has a history of clashing with Bill de Blasio, New York City’s mayor, had suggested schools could be kept open as the state ramps up testing capacity. But city officials announced school closures after New York surpassed a 3% Covid test positivity rate. Adding to the confusion: per the state’s calculations, which often diverge from the city’s numbers, the positive tests in New York City were at 2.5%.
      The hostile Wednesday press briefing came after Cuomo, who earned praise for leading New York through an initial surge of infections, published a book titled American Crisis: Leadership Lessons from the Covid-19 Pandemic.
      “Cuomo is being incredibly condescending and rude for someone who wrote a book about how well he managed the pandemic before it was over,’” wrote BuzzFeed’s David Mack. More

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      New research sheds light on Alexander Hamilton's ties to slavery

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      Far from being the “uncompromising abolitionist” of Ron Chernow’s hit biography and the Broadway musical it inspired, Alexander Hamilton not only owned enslaved people himself “but his involvement in the institution of slavery was essential to his identity, both personally and professionally”, new research claims.
      “When we say Hamilton didn’t enslave people, we’re erasing them from the story,” Jessie Serfilippi, a historical interpreter at the Schuyler Mansion State Historic Site in Albany, New York, told the New York Times. “The most important thing is they were here. We need to acknowledge them.”
      One leading historian of founders and slavery, Annette Gordon-Reed, said that in showing Hamilton “as an enslaver”, Serfilippi had “broadened the discussion”.
      Among other achievements, Hamilton, the founder of the US banking system, is generally held to be one of the revolutionary generation less marked by the stain of slavery than, for instance, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, the first and third presidents who both owned enslaved people.
      Serfilippi’s research has therefore caused a stir.
      “In the 21st century,” she writes, “Alexander Hamilton is almost universally depicted as an abolitionist. From Ron Chernow’s Hamilton to Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton: an American Musical, there is little room in modern discourse for questioning the founder’s thoughts and feelings on slavery.
      “ … However, some of Hamilton’s writings often believed to express abolitionist sympathies or the evolution of such feelings are more in line with his politics than his morals.”
      Hamilton has long been thought to have had an antipathy to slavery instilled by a childhood among the brutal sugar plantations of the British Caribbean. Serfilippi, however, writes that “to date, no primary sources have been found to corroborate” the idea.
      Hamilton married into the Schuyler family, a powerful force in New York, then, like the rest of the United States, a state where slavery was legal although it was in local decline. Recent research on the Schuylers’ ownership of enslaved people has turned up skeletons as well as plentiful evidence.
      Biographers including Chernow have long noted that Hamilton may have owned enslaved people. Serfilippi cites evidence from his account books which suggests that he did, for example a payment of $250 to his father-in-law, Philip Schuyler, for “[two] Negro servants purchased by him for me”.
      Chernow told the Times that though Serfilippi had done “a terrific research job that broadens our sense of Hamilton’s involvement in slavery in a number of ways”, she had not sufficiently considered his anti-slavery activities.
      But Gordon-Reed, a Harvard professor and the author of The Hemingses of Monticello, about those enslaved by Jefferson, called Serfilippi’s work “fascinating”.
      In a year marked by protests against police brutality and racial injustice, most statues and public monuments defaced or removed across the US have been of leaders or soldiers of the Confederacy, the rebel state which fought and lost the civil war between 1861 and 1865 in an attempt to maintain slavery.
      But the reputations of the founders and other American leaders – even Abraham Lincoln, the president who abolished slavery and won the civil war, and Ulysses S Grant, the general who fought it – have also come under renewed scrutiny.
      This summer, Miranda responded to criticism of his musical for not engaging with the realties of slavery and Hamilton’s relationship to it.
      “All the criticisms are valid,” he wrote. “The sheer tonnage of complexities and failings of these people I couldn’t get. Or wrestled with but cut. I took six years and fit as much as I could in a two-and-a-half-hour musical. Did my best. It’s all fair game.”
      Regarding Serfilippi’s research, Gordon-Reed wrote on Twitter that it “reminds of the ubiquitous nature of slavery in the colonial period and the early American republic.
      “Alexander Hamilton as an enslaver broadens the discussion.” More