The Founding Fathers’ Other Benjamin
Benjamin Rush (1746 – 1813) was not a famous Founding Father. He was not even the most famous Benjamin of the bunch. Still, he was famous enough in the America of his day. A signer of the Declaration of Independence, Rush was a politician, doctor, humanitarian, social reformer, educator, and the founder of Dickinson College. In the American War of Independence, he served as Surgeon General of the Continental Army. Rush was an antislavery activist, and by the era’s standards, he was as liberal as it gets. However, his quest for racial justice took him down some odd paths. For example, he argued that blacks deserved freedom and equality because they were actually white people – just ones with a weird illness.
Rush reasoned that black people were whites afflicted with a leprosy that darkened their skins, enlarged their lips, and turned their hair woolly. He even coined a term for the disease: “negritude”. To end discrimination, he advocated a cure that would rid blacks of their supposed illness, and transform them back into whites: acid. Rush wanted to “burn away the black” with acids, to remove the dark skin and woolly hair, and reveal the wholesome and healthy whiteness beneath. The man wanted to help – and it should be remembered that he was an implacable foe of slavery and an early advocate of abolition. However, it is a good thing that his “cure” for blackness was not adopted.
