Published in the Fairfield Daily Republic
February 11, 2026
The other side
The Greatest Founding Father You’ve Never Heard Of
By Kelvin Wade
Social media is buzzing with tributes to the late former Fairfield Mayor Chuck Hammond being honored as part of Black History Month.
As a city councilman and Fairfield’s first black mayor, the gregarious Hammond was a dedicated public servant. We should honor local people like Hammond and like librarian and Reading Rainbow host Mychal Threets, as well as my brother Tony Wade who brings history to life in his columns and books. That’s living black history.
But today, Black history is treated as a threat. Contributions are smeared with the 'DEI' label, weaponized as a slur against excellence.
Last month, the National Park Service removed some historical displays from the President’s House Site in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. This was the house George Washington and John Adams lived in while Philadelphia was the nation’s capital. They took down exhibits on slavery. Following the Orwellian named “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History” executive order, the administration says slavery is a “divisive narrative” and it “disparages” the Founding Fathers.
Disparages? It tells the truth.
Also, the administration will be erecting a statue of Christopher Columbus on the White House grounds. The statue was torn down in Baltimore in 2020 during the George Floyd protests and has since been restored and will be loaned to the feds.
The truth about Columbus? He never touched continental U.S. soil. He enslaved thousands, sex trafficked children, and tortured and murdered for sport until he was hauled back to Spain in chains. We must’ve skipped those chapters at Tolenas Elementary.
But all black history isn’t tragic and sometimes the people making “black history” aren’t even black. I like the saying that slavery is white history and surviving it is black history. Usually, the fact that the founding fathers like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson owned slaves while professing that “all men are created equal” is explained away as the men being the product of their times. But the truth is Jefferson talked a good game, but couldn’t bear to free his slaves and stop raping them.
George Washington famously freed his slaves upon his wife’s death. Freeing people only after you're dead isn't a profile in courage; it's a final act of convenience. You can't use 'property' in the afterlife.
These were brilliant, visionary men who also knew that slavery was morally wrong. Jefferson famously wrote on slavery, “Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is Just.” Patrick Henry, who famously said to give him liberty or death, wasn’t willing to extend that liberty to his slaves. He wrote that it would inconvenience him to not have slaves even though he knew it was “repugnant to humanity.”
But there were people of genuine conviction during those times. Robert Carter III was a wealthy white Virginia landowner, having inherited over 65,000 acres and over 500 slaves and was wealthier than Washington and Jefferson combined. He lived in a grand estate called Nomini Hall in Westmoreland County with his wife and twelve children.
Carter was raised in the Church of England but shocked his peers when he became a Baptist. Some of those early Baptist congregations preached that slavery was sinful and Carter attended such a church.
He struggled with being a slave owner and finding it morally wrong, just like many of the Founding Fathers did but Carter did something about it. In 1791, he carefully enacted a plan called the Deed of Gift that ultimately freed over 450 men, women and children. It was a calculated dismantling of an empire. He didn't just open the gates; he funded the exit. Many of the slaves continued working for him but were free and paid. He tried to keep slave families together.
His peers, some family and friends we’re shocked and outraged at what he did, fearing his act would unsettle other slaves and encourage rebellions. Many didn’t share his conviction that they were doing anything wrong. Carter eventually moved to Baltimore and lived a more modest life, still overseeing the manumissions. He helped provide for his elderly slaves and slave children.
He felt it was his obligation to right a wrong. He’d benefited from slave labor most of his life and when he had his spiritual awakening he put his faith in action, even though it cost him everything. He asked to be buried in an unmarked grave, further demonstrating his humility.
What was his legacy? It wasn’t a turning point in the slave trade. Virginia’s anti-slavery laws grew crueler and slavery expanded after his actions. But what he did meant the world to the people he freed and their descendants. His moral clarity and sacrifice tells us that progress isn’t always linear. His was the largest private act of manumission in U.S. history before the Civil War, and most Americans have never even heard of him.
Robert Carter’s story leaves us with valuable lessons like professing your convictions isn’t the same as living them. Carter proves that 'men of their time' is a hollow excuse used by moral cowards. He was of that time, too. He just chose to be better. Don’t talk about it. Be about it. Peace.
Kelvin Wade, a writer and former Fairfield resident, lives in Sacramento. Reach him at kelvinjwade@outlook.com.
