election and inaugural day

snokkums · Post by **snokkums** » Wed Jan 21, 2009 7:56 am

With all the hoopla that went on yesterday with the inauguration, I wonder what Lizzie would have thought.

And we did elect our first Black president; wonder what her views of that would have been. I mean, she was of her time, which probably didn't see to many black back then didn't fair to well. I wonder if she would have enjoyed watching Obama getting sworn in and the parade that followed.

I bet she would have loved the balls that happened that night!

SallyG · Post by **SallyG** » Wed Jan 21, 2009 10:58 am

I enjoyed yesterdays festivities, but wonder how many are aware that there have been several presidents with black ancestry?

As you stated, Lizzie was a product of her time, so her views would have probably reflected the era.

snokkums · Post by **snokkums** » Wed Jan 21, 2009 6:34 pm

I don't know of any at all Sally. I know that Thomas Jefferson father a child by one of his slave women. That's as close as I come to knowing anything about that.

SallyG · Post by **SallyG** » Wed Jan 21, 2009 10:18 pm

There are some interesting articles about it online. Anyone whose family has been in America from the 1700's on back is very likely to have mixed ancestry. I have it myself and my family has been here since the 1500's.

History is a very interesting subject to me and I seem to stumble across all kinds of interesting little tidbits in my reading.

doug65oh · Post by **doug65oh** » Wed Jan 21, 2009 10:54 pm

All things considered, I honestly suspect that Lizzie would have been horrified by yesterday's events. Deeply fascinated, but horrified just the same.

Kashesan · Post by **Kashesan** » Thu Jan 22, 2009 12:41 pm

His birthday is August 4

Kat · Post by **Kat** » Fri Jan 23, 2009 2:35 am

I didn't know that!
Thanks!

snokkums · Post by **snokkums** » Sat Jan 24, 2009 6:55 am

doug65oh @ Wed Jan 21, 2009 10:54 pm wrote:All things considered, I honestly suspect that Lizzie would have been horrified by yesterday's events. Deeply fascinated, but horrified just the same.

Why would you say she would be horrified? I think she'd be amazed at the events. Maybe alittle shocked too.

1bigsteve · Post by **1bigsteve** » Sat Jan 24, 2009 10:03 am

Lizzie might have been more outgoing in her thinking, after all she did sell 92nd street and move into a rich home with servants, trips, parties, hob-nobing, etc. Who knows for sure but I think the present Presidental activities may not have bothered Lizzie much. She may have welcomed it.

But, like me, she might have been relieved that all the gap flapping is finally over.

-1bigsteve (o:

doug65oh · Post by **doug65oh** » Sat Jan 24, 2009 1:54 pm

Well, to my way of thinking it comes down to this and this exactly: The question has to be examined in context of the times in which Lizzie Borden walked the earth. When she entered the world in 1860, several millions were seen as constitutionally inferior because of their race – seen as property because of their race.

Fast forward about 65 years to the middle 1920s. The war has been over for 60 years. Slavery is gone. White women get the vote. Massachusetts had been a haven for progressive thought and action for 150 years – and that reputation was not undeserved. But Edward W. Brooke (who became the first Black Congressman elected in Massachusetts some 40 years after Lizzie Borden went to her reward) wasn’t even born yet.

Sure, Lizzie was a moneyed hob-nobber the last half of her life – with them who cared to hob-nob with her – but beyond that the only things we know or can reasonably surmise is that her servants were white.

As Sally said so well: For good or ill, we’re all products of the times in which we live.