CC's Phil Jackson...........basketball and moto maintenance..............it is a Mad, Mad, Mad World.......Westminster Abby to M street.........Wash Dc........................

Correspondence with the then Sec of State..............Tom Jefferson wrote the Decl of Indep...............about civil rights........Ben Banneker wrote him.............Tom J wrote back.......they all respected Banneker..............

Correspondence with Thomas Jefferson

^{Independence National Historical Park, Philadelphia} 1791 portrait of Thomas Jefferson by Charles Willson Peale

On August 19, 1791, after departing the federal capital area, Banneker wrote a letter to Thomas Jefferson, who in 1776 had drafted the United States Declaration of Independence and in 1791 was serving as the United States Secretary of State (see: List of Secretaries of State of the United States).^{[86][87][88][89]} Quoting language in the Declaration, the letter expressed a plea for justice for African Americans.
To further support this plea, Banneker included within the letter a handwritten manuscript of an almanac for 1792 containing his ephemeris with his astronomical calculations. He subsequently placed copies of the letter and Jefferson's reply in his journal and in a 1792 pamphlet that a printer distributed and sold in Philadelphia, where another printer was distributing and selling that almanac.^{[2][50][86][88]}
In the letter, Banneker accused Jefferson of criminally using fraud and violence to oppress his slaves by stating:

.... Sir, how pitiable is it to reflect, that altho you were so fully convinced of the benevolence of the Father of mankind, and of his equal and impartial distribution of those rights and privileges which he had conferred upon them, that you should at the same time counteract his mercies, in detaining by fraud and violence so numerous a part of my brethren under groaning captivity and cruel oppression, that you should at the Same time be found guilty of that most criminal act, which you professedly detested in others, with respect to your Selves.^[87][90]

The letter ended:

And now Sir, I Shall conclude and Subscribe my Self with the most profound respect,
Your most Obedient humble Servant
B. Banneker^[91][92]

An English abolitionist, Thomas Day, had earlier written in a 1776 letter that had been published in Boston in 1784:

.... you dare to call yourselves the masters of wretches whom you have acquired by fraud, and retain by violence! ....
If there be an object truly ridiculous in nature, it is an American patriot, signing resolutions of independency with the one hand, and with the other brandishing a whip over his affrighted slaves. ....
There can be no prescription pleaded against truth and justice; and the continuance of the evil is so far from justifying, that it is an exageration of the crime.^[93]

Without directly responding to Banneker's accusation, Jefferson replied to Banneker's letter in a series of nuanced statements that expressed his interest in the advancement of the equality of America's black population.^[94] Jefferson's reply stated:

Philadelphia Aug. 30. 1791.
Sir,
I thank you sincerely for your letter of the 19th. instant and for the Almanac it contained. no body wishes more than I do to see such proofs as you exhibit, that nature has given to our black brethren, talents equal to those of the other colours of men, & that the appearance of a want of them is owing merely to the degraded condition of their existence both in Africa & America. I can add with truth that no body wishes more ardently to see a good system commenced for raising the condition both of their body & mind to what it ought to be, as fast as the imbecillity of their present existence, and other circumstance which cannot be neglected, will admit. I have taken the liberty of sending your almanac to Monsieur de Condorcet, Secretary of the Academy of sciences at Paris, and member of the Philanthropic society because I considered it as a document to which your whole colour had a right for their justification against the doubts which have been entertained of them. I am with great esteem, Sir,
Your most obedt. humble servt.
Th. Jefferson^[87][91][95]