AI Issue 6 2017

92 Acquisition International - June 2017 The Washington Interdependence Council (WIC) is a non-profit civic organization authorized by Congress to erect a monument to colonial American hero Benjamin Banneker. We profile the organisation and its inspirational Founder and CEO Peggy Seats to learn more about this brilliant cause. ounded in 1996, WIC is devoted to designing programs of environmental diversity. WIC was founded on the principal of a need to incorporate diversity into the environmental aesthetics of the region’s social fiber. Diversity should include a public landscape that incorporates symbolic representation of all the people of the American constituency. After lobbying Congress for nearly two years, WIC was successful in its bid to honor Benjamin Banneker with a memorial. In November of 1998, President Clinton signed into law legislation authorizing WIC to proceed towards endeavouring to establish a monument to America’s First Black Man of Science. In 1999, WIC gained further ground upon receiving site approval from the National Capital Memorial Commission to place Banneker’s Memorial along the L’Enfant Plaza corridor in southwest DC. This site was chosen because it already had historic precedent in that the half mile promenade has been named for two of the Founding Architects of the nation’s capital. The half mile enclave is named for Charles Pierre L’Enfant, the Frenchman retained by President George Washington to design the plans for the Federal City. The southern terminus of this corridor has a commemorative circular overlook named Banneker Overlook Park which honors this colonial American hero who helped to both survey and design the federal territory of Washington, DC, among his many accomplishments. Company: Washington Interdependence Council Web: www.bannekermemorial.org Brining the Brilliance of Benjamin Banneker F 1702AI26 The organisation’s Founder Peggy has been striving to promote social equality for over 20 years. Since founding the Washington Interdependence Council in 1996, she has endeavoured to enlist the support of the American public to establish a world class memorial to colonial American hero, Benjamin Banneker. Although Banneker’s name rings a bell in the memory of people, few are aware of the breadth and depth of his iconic legacy as he was, first of all, an African-American who lived over 200 years ago, and who has yet to receive the credit and recognition he so richly deserves as a pioneering Renaissance Genius at a time that most persons of his ethnicity were being brought to the shores of America, en masse, as chattel slaves. Banneker was a second generation free black whose star began to shine in 1753, at the age of 22, when he engineered America’s first striking clock made entirely of indigenous parts. He went on to become known as America’s first high profile Abolitionist, or as we call it today, Civil Rights leader, penning a scathing letter to Thomas Jefferson on August 19, 1791 condemning the ills of slavery and racism. This was America’s first publicly documented Protest Letter. Jefferson was not only Secretary of State at the time, but Banneker’s former employer as he had just left his position working with George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Charles Pierre L’Enfant, and his direct employer, Andrew Ellicott, the Geographer General of the U.S., as his Assistant. They worked to establish the new Federal City as the nation’s capital. Perhaps most widely known as America’s First Black Man of Science, Banneker was a man of many firsts. He authored among the first almanacs in America, was the first to track the 17-year locust cycle; was the first to recommend a Dept. of Peace as a cabinet post; was America’s first black astronomer, scientist, mathematician. He also created the financial instrument now called the Reverse Mortgage. As such, promoting his work and continuing his legacy is an ongoing endeavour which WIC remain committed to. Currently the organisation is working towards meeting the final major step of legal protocol for establishing a monument within the monumental core of the nation’s capital. This step involves securing design approval from the U.S. Fine Arts Commission. Brining the Brilliance of Benjamin Banneker to the World