Every modern vice president has lived on land bought with slavery-derived wealth.

Evidence

In 1878 Congress established a commission to find a new site for the US Naval Observatory and invited District of Columbia landowners to submit proposals. Seventy-eight proposals came in, including one from the financially shrewd Margaret Barber. Northview’s ample acreage and secluded locale made it an ideal site, and the commission settled on purchasing it from Margaret on April 25, 1881, for the price of 63,000 (a little over 1.8 million today). The Barbers’ elaborate mansion was torn down and the house at One Observatory Circle was erected to house the superintendent of the Observatory. The home would later become the official residence of the vice president, when Gerald and Betty Ford briefly lived there in 1974 before moving into the White House when Ford became president. Every vice president since Walter Mondale has lived in the Naval Observatory and is a direct beneficiary of enslaved labor. This important piece of history has been hiding in plain sight. How is that possible? Who tells the story, it turns out, matters a great deal. — Dorothy A. Brown, Getting to Reparations, 462

Categorization

• CANDY: A striking fact — the vice president’s residence sits on enslaved-labor wealth — perfect for an elevator conversation or talk opener.
• SEED: The ‘who tells the story matters’ observation is the thesis of the memoir-as-evidence section; pairs the material fact with the epistemology claim.