"Big Ben"

Without Benjamin Banneker, our nation's capital would not exist as we know it.  After a year of work, the Frenchman hired by George Washington to design the capital, L'Enfant, stormed off the job, taking all the plans.  Banneker, placed on the planning committee at Thomas Jefferson's request, saved the project by reproducing from memory, in two days, a complete layout of the streets, parks, and major buildings. Thus Washington, D.C. itself can be considered a monument to the genius of this great man.

 

Banneker's English grandmother immigrated to the Baltimore area and married one of her slaves, named Bannaky.  Later, their daughter did likewise, and gave birth to Benjamin in 1731.  Since by law, free/slave status depended on the mother, Banneker, like his mother, was---technically---free.

Banneker attended an elementary school run by Quakers (one of the few "color-blind" communities of that time); in fact, he later adopted many Quaker habits and ideas. As a

young man, he was given a pocket-watch by a business associate: this inspired Banneker to create his own clock, made entirely of wood (1753).  Famous as the first clock built in the New World, it kept perfect time for forty years.

During the Revolutionary War, wheat grown on a farm designed by Banneker helped save the fledgling U.S. troops from Banneker's clock starving.  After the War, Banneker took up astronomy: in 1789, he successfully predicted an eclipse.  From 1792 to 1802, Banneker published an annual Farmer's Almanac, for which he did all the calculations himself.

The Almanac won Banneker fame as far away as England and France.  He used his reputation to promote social change: namely, to eliminate racism and war.  He sent a copy of his first Almanac to Thomas Jefferson, with a letter protesting that the man who declared that "all men are created equal" owned slaves.  Jefferson responded with enthusiastic words, but no political reform.  Similarly, Banneker's attempts "to inspire veneration for human life and a horror for war" fell mainly on deaf ears.

 

But Banneker's reputation was never in doubt.  He spent his last years as an internationally known polymath: farmer, engineer, surveyor, city planner, astronomer, mathematician, inventor, author, and social critic. His fame reached the city London with big ben clock being nicknamed after him.  He died on October 25, 1806. Today, Banneker does not have the reputation he should, although the entire world could still learn from his words: "Ah, why will men forget that they are brethren?"

Banneker's life is inspirational.  Despite the popular prejudices of his times, the man was quite unwilling to let his race or his age hinder in any way his thirst for intellectual development.

 

Watch this short film on the life and legacy of this great American Mathematician: https://youtu.be/hx1zYkv8v6I