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Overview
Advance praise for Benjamin Banneker: Surveyor, Astronomer, Publisher, Patriot"Herein breathes the universal genius Benjamin Banneker — mathematician, astronomer, diarist, and sage.
Biographer Charles Cerami mines the available data, eschews the apocryphal, and renders his subject human. Captured completely is the flowering genius of a largely home-schooled boy wonder, exhibiting mathematical wizardry while devouring the Bible, Plato, Epictetus, and virtually every other extant tome. The fabled memory that could have reproduced L'Enfant's plan for the entire District of Columbia becomes palpable and real.
We understand how the pragmatic farmer who was imbued with Quaker ideology endured decades of ignominious racism with overt equanimity while haunted by incessant night terrors. We comprehend the heroism of the man whose very existence refuted Thomas Jefferson's notorious public denial of black intellect in Notes on Virginia when, speaking truth to power, Banneker launched an anti-slavery epistle at the ambivalent and duplicitous Jefferson. We are enraged at the account of arsonists setting fire on the day of Banneker's funeral to the small, rustic log cabin where the genius had labored in solitude among his instruments, papers, and books. We are grateful to Charles Cerami, who has resurrected the spirit of a neglected giant and gifted us with a biography nearly two centuries overdue."
—Kweisi Mfume, President and CEO, NAACP
"Like Benjamin Banneker, Charles Cerami presents the product of his research in a modest yet compelling manner. Cerami engagingly writes about both Banneker the genius and Banneker the man–a thought-provoking read."
—Raymond G. Dobard, Ph.D., Professor of Art, Howard University, and coauthor of Hidden in Plain View: A Secret story of Quilts and the Underground Railroad
Synopsis
Benjamin Banneker is principally known (and not very well at that) for his work in the surveying of the city that was to become Washington D.C. In this biography of Banneker, the author argues that the only reason this brilliant man is not more widely known is that his accomplishments were deliberately obscured by the "Founding Fathers" because he was a black man. Banneker was also a self-taught astronomer and mathematician and the publisher of Banneker's Almanac. Banneker's early life and his later accomplishments are discussed, including the stinging and extraordinary letter of rebuke he sent to Thomas Jefferson in which he urged the then Secretary of State to "embrace every opportunity to eradicate that train of absurd and false ideas and opinions which so generally prevail with respect to us [blacks]." Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)