A Response To The 1619 Project, Part 2 – With Tim Barton At The ProFamily Legislators Conference: It’s Black History month; but, you may have never heard of several of these influential black Americans. Why? Their lives do not follow the mainstream narrative. Today we continue sharing Tim Barton’s response to the 1619 Project. Tune in to hear this important broadcast!

Air Date: 02/18/2021

On-air Personalities: David Barton, Rick Green, and Tim Barton

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Transcription note:  As a courtesy for our listeners’ enjoyment, we are providing a transcription of this podcast. Transcription will be released shortly. However, as this is transcribed from a live talk show, words and sentence structure were not altered to fit grammatical, written norms in order to preserve the integrity of the actual dialogue between the speakers. Additionally, names may be misspelled or we might use an asterisk to indicate a missing word because of the difficulty in understanding the speaker at times. We apologize in advance.

Faith and the Culture

Rick:

Welcome to the intersection of faith and the culture. It’s WallBuilders Live, where we’re talking about today’s hottest topics on policy and faith in the culture, always from a biblical, historical, and constitutional perspective. You can learn more about our program at our website, wallbuilderslive.com.

My name is Rick Green. I’m a former Texas legislator and America’s Constitution coach. But today, you’re mostly going to be hearing from Tim Barton. He’s a national speaker and pastor. He’s president of WallBuilders, and he gave an amazing presentation at our ProFamily Legislators Conference just a few weeks ago. 

It’s a presentation in response to the 1619 project. It’s a presentation of truth about black history and about America. This is Black History Month in America, February is and it’s a great opportunity for us to learn the truth, the good, the bad, and the ugly. We don’t sugarcoat it, we don’t water it down, but we give you the whole story. And that’s what Tim does in this presentation.

If you miss the opening of the presentation, which was yesterday on WallBuilders Live, it’s available right now on our website, wallbuilderslive.com. Let’s jump right in where we left off at the end of yesterday’s program. Here’s Tim Barton at the ProFamily Legislators Conference.

Harry Hoosier

Tim:

Harry Hoosier is not the only minister in American history who was doing amazing things as, again, a pastor in America or as an evangelist in America. You have people like John Moran. John Marrant was a convert under George Whitfield ministry. Now John Marrant was born a free black in New York, he moved to South Carolina, lived with his sister. And one day he was on his way, when he was 11 years old, he went to school, he became a master musician. 

He then from 12 to 13, began getting hired to go play all these concerts and he was a very, very good musician. He was on his way to a concert one day, he heard George Whitfield preaching, he stopped. There was this crazy account of George Whitfield, he ends up getting saved. He gets so fired up and passionate for God. All he wants to do is talk about Jesus, well, he was living with his sister and their family and they weren’t saved.

And they got so tired of him talking about Jesus. He said they begin to call me every name except one that was good. And so he said, “I found no relief except for going into the woods where it could be just me and God.” So he decides I’m just going to go live in the woods. 

He went and lived in the woods, and he found an Indian he’d met in town before the family knew him. And the Indian was hunting and trapping and gathering first. And the Indians said, do you want to live with me? And he said, I have nowhere else to go. And so John Marrant lived with his Indian for more than eight weeks, and he learns to speak Cherokee for the whole time he’s with this Indian.

The Indian and says, I have enough furs, I’m going back to my village. Do you want to go? So John goes back to the village. When they go back to the village, they meet the chief of the village. The problem was the chief at the time said we’re not accepting any outsiders. And it was very clear John Marrant was not an Indian, right, like, didn’t have that look. So the chief orders John to be executed. 

Talking to Jesus

John is seized as his friend try to speak up for him, they take his friend away, he is seized. And he said “They took me to go lock me in a hut, but they walked me by and they had all these, like instruments and implements lay down on the ground.” And he said, “They begin to show me how they were going to use those to torture me.” To like, dismember and like burn them alive, like just crazy things, so he has to watch all this.

He’s only 13 years old at the time. They take him to this hut, they lock him up in a hut. And while he’s in the hut, he is now realizing what’s going to happen to him the next morning. He said at first he was overwhelmed with fear. But then he realized once I die, I’m going to get to see Jesus. So he began to rejoice and he was like Jesus, I’m so excited. He began to pray and talk to Jesus. 

Well, as he’s doing this in this huts, the guard opens the door and looks in says, who are you talking to? And he said, I’m talking to Jesus. And the guard said, I don’t see anybody in here. He said, no, Jesus is here with me. And the guard said, well, who is Jesus? So he tells the guard about Jesus. The guard said, hang on a second, I need to get somebody.

The guard brings other leaders back in the tribe. John Marrant tells them about Jesus and they’re like, okay, that’s a great story. Hang on, the chief needs to hear this. They take John back to the chief, the chief ends up converting to Christianity after hearing John’s testimony about the gospel. John had a Bible with him, showed him from the Bible, and he does it all Cherokee, right, which he learned in eight weeks earlier. Like, it’s just crazy story what he’s doing.

Well, at the end of this, the chief becomes a convert. The chief actually gives him this like big medallion that you’re now a prince of the tribe, so you have freedom come and go as you will. But the chief says, would you be willing to stay with us we need to learn more about Jesus? Can you teach us more about Jesus? John stays with him in their camp for several weeks teaching them about Jesus. 

A Dangerous Mission

And then the chief says, we have some other friends that live in other villages, would you be willing to go to other villages and tell them about Jesus? Now, the chief says just so you know, some of these other tribes, they’re actually pretty fierce warrior tribes. So what I’m going to do is I’m going to send my personal guard with you.

John said the chief’s personal guard was the 50 bravest warriors from the tribe. And the chief wanted John then to go with these 50 warriors and go be a witness of Jesus to the other tribes. Now, probably most of us have gone on a mission trip at some point in our life. And I love missions’ trips. 

But I’m just going to tell you, if somebody came marketing to me and they’re like, Tim, we have a mission strip, and there’s 50 Navy SEALs, like I’m in. I have no idea what else is coming. But if I have 50 bodyguards who are like the Navy SEALs Green Berets Force Recon Marines, like, okay, I don’t know what’s happening. But I am so excited about this adventure, let’s do it. Right?

Rick:

Alright, friends, quick break again. Tim Barton is speaking at the ProFamily Legislators Conference. We need just a one minute break here. We’ll be right back, you’re listening to WallBuilders Live.

The American Story

Hey, guys, we want to let you know about a new resource we have at WallBuilders called The American Story. For so many years, people have asked us to do a history book to help tell more of the story that’s just not known or not told today. And we would say very providentially, in the midst of all of the new attacks coming out against America.

Whether it be from things like the 1619 project that say America is evil and everything in America was built off slavery, which is certainly not true or things like even the Black Lives Matter movement, the organization itself, not out of statement, Black Lives Matter, but the organization that says we’re against everything that America was built on, and this is part of the Marxist ideology. There’s so many things attacking America.

Well, is America worth defending? What is the true story of America? We actually have written and told that story. Starting with Christopher Columbus, going roughly through Abraham Lincoln, we tell the story of America, not as the story of a perfect nation or a perfect people, but the story of how God used these imperfect people and did great things through this nation. It’s a story you want to check out, wallbuilder.com, The American Story.

Rick:

Welcome back to WallBuilders Live. Thanks for staying with us today. Tim Barton is speaking at the ProFamily Legislators Conference in a response to the 1619 project. Let’s jump right in where we left off before the break.

ProFamily Legislators Conference

Tim:

He starts off with a Cherokee and then he goes to the Catawar, stays with them several weeks. The Catawars then sent him onto the Housaw tribe. He’s with the Housaw several weeks, he then goes on to the creeks. He as a 13 turned 14 in this journey, as a 13 and 14 year old is the first black American to successfully evangelize Native Americans in American history. This was the early and mid-1700s. Okay?

Here’s what’s crazy. His entire story he wrote down, you can get on Google Books right now and you can look it up and read the whole thing. You would download the PDF. It’s only 30 or 40 pages. It’s an amazing read. It became one of the bestselling little pamphlet booklets in the entire century, because people were so fascinated how God used this 13 or 14 year old boy in such amazing ways. But see, this is another example.

If we’re going to talk about what black heroes should we know about American history, I would say there’s a whole list of black heroes I would love for you to learn about who were amazing people that God using really special ways. We also could talk about people closer to the revolution.

Lemuel Haynes was someone who was an indentured servant early in life, he actually got his freedom. He ends up becoming a pastor later in life. This is a picture of him as a pastor, and this picture is very important. He was a pastor up in New England states, was actually a pastor in three different states over his time. This is his church.

If you look at his church, there’s something significant about his church. It doesn’t look like him. He pastored traditionally white churches. Now this is important. Because the argument is that all of America was racist. Well, if you are a white congregation, and you are a racist, guess who you are never having as a pastor of your church? A black pastor. Right? But we have forgotten.

Lemuel Haynes

See, there’s a legacy of Plymouth and a legacy of Jamestown, and they impacted different parts of the nation in different ways. We don’t know the legacy because we don’t know the history anymore. Lemuel Haynes is a great example. He’s one of the first black pastors actually ever have a sermon published. We actually have sermons from him at WallBuilders. We can show you some of his sermons. We actually have a Bible from him.

Well, he was indentured servant. He got us freedom, the age of 21 years old. At 21 years old, he then signs up for the Massachusetts Minutemen. He’s in the American Revolution as a free black fighting for America to be free. He gets assigned under George Washington throughout the revolution. So he knows George Washington personally.

When he became a pastor, one of the things that he would do at times on George Washington’s Birthday is he would preach sermons about the Christian faith of Washington and how God use Washington in amazing ways. So this is a black man praising George Washington and a man who knew him praising him. Right?

So again, this is where it’s interesting when you actually study original documents, and you see what people actually did and what they actually said. It’s not always what the narrative shows us. But again, we actually have his Bible. This is the signature from his Bible, you can see the WallBuilders if you go with us on Sunday. He’s another example of a great hero in American history. And he was a guy involved with the revolution.

So if we look at the American Revolution, as the American Revolution unfolds, we can go to 1775, which is where we know we’re going to have the shot around the world in April, well, Paul Revere in April 18th make this famous midnight ride. As he makes a midnight ride, he’s not arbitrarily just riding through town screaming the British are coming, he’s actually intentional on what he’s doing.

Paul Revere

Now, Paul Revere is very known for this ride. Remember, history probably was not the only guy that rode that night, number one. But number two, the British as they begin moving over the next several weeks throughout the different states and areas and territories, there was a lot of people who rode that time saying, hey, the British are coming, we need to do something.

Well, one of the guys who had one of those very famous rides, this guy right down here in the corner, his name is Wentworth Cheswell. Wentworth Cheswell was a black patriot who made one of those famous Paul Revere kind of rides, warning Americans that the British were coming.

Wentworth Cheswell, more so than that, from up in the New England states, he was the first Black American or one of the first Black Americans elected to office. He was elected not only in just one election, he served as an elected official for nearly 50 years and he was in a white community. So his white community kept electing him over and over and over to represent them. This is a significant guy to know as well. Well, let’s let me go back to Paul Revere.

Paul Revere makes us famous midnight, right, April 18th 1775. He’s riding specifically looking to warn John Hancock and Sam Adams, because they were the leaders of Sons of Liberty. John Hancock was the president of Congress, and they’re needing to let them know that the British were coming.

So where is Paul Revere going to find these two guys? He rode to the home of the Reverend Jonas Clarke, because Jonas Clarke was a cousin to John Hancock by marriage, but also he was known as the mentor of these guys. Paul Revere rides there, these two guys are both there. So Paul Revere tells him the British are coming.

There actually was a warrant from the British to see is the bodies of John Hancock and Sam Adams. So the British were looking specifically for those two guys. Well, the next morning is when you have the shot heard around the world. When this happens, there’s more than 700 British against roughly 70 Americans.

John Roberts and Prince Estabrook

And at the end of this, there were 18 Americans who were shot or wounded. Among those who had been shot and wounded were John Roberts and Prince Estabrook. John Roberts is a white guy, Prince Estabrook is a black guy. And this is very well documented.

So if you look at some of the very first casualties as the Revolution is unfolding, you have white and black guy who were fighting together against the British. Well, why were they there together? They actually attended church together. They both went to the Church of the Reverend Jonas Clarke. So even back then, you had a different kind of a mixed church. We don’t always even see that in today’s culture, but this is early America.

Well, Prince Esterbrook is someone who was noted historically, his grave is still around, you can go and see it. But even if you go to Lexington Greene today, there’s a monument there honoring Prince Estabrook for being one of the heroes that day who stood up against the British. Well, that was in April 1775.

If you go forward just a little bit to June 1775, you have the Battle of Bunker Hill. And if you remember history, the Americans are largely winning the Battle of Bunker Hill, but there were three charges and this is also Brits here, right, but there’s three charges.

And the first charge, the Americans repelled the British. The second charge, the Americans repelled the British. The third charge, the Americans ran out of ammunition. Okay. And this very famous painting over here on the right side, that is Peter Salem, he’s standing behind Thomas Gosvenor.

Peter Salem was the hero of the Battle of Bunker Hill. He received commendations for more than a dozen officers encouraging he be promoted for his bravery on the battlefield. Now, let me also point out historically.

This used to be something that was known. There’s lithographs of him. There’s different pictures of him.

Peter Salem

The reason that he was the hero of that day, is because during the third charge, when the Americans ran out of ammunition, the guy leading the charge for the British was Major Pitcairn. And as he’s leading the charge, the Americans now out of ammunition, they’re being overrun.

Peter Salem has one round left. Well, how do we stop the charge? If you can stop the leader, maybe you can stop the charge. He shoots the officer and he takes out Major Pitcairn.

The British stop and a little bit of chaos, it gives the Americans just enough time to largely retreat off the field and escape. He was the hero who saved their lives because he stopped the charge when he shot the commanding officer leading the charge.

That’s where more than a dozen officer says this dude should be promoted. He’s the hero. He saved our lives. That’s Peter Salem.

Another guy who was there that day also received commendations was Salem Poor, right, two black Heroes for American history that should be known and identified. Go forward. December 1776, this is when George Washington makes his famous crossing of the Delaware even in this very famous painting.

Rick:

Alright, friends, quick break, we got to take a quick break. We’ll be right back. We’ll jump right back into Tim Barton’s presentation when we return, you’re listening to WallBuilders Live.

The Courageous Leaders Collection

Hi, friends, this is Tim Barton of WallBuilders. This is a time when most Americans don’t know much about American history or even heroes of the faith. And I know oftentimes for parents, we’re trying to find good content for our kids to read.

And if you remember back to the Bible, to the book of Hebrews, it has the faith Hall of Fame where they outline the leaders of faith that had gone before them. Well, this is something that as Americans, we really want to go back and outline some of these heroes, not just of American history, but heroes of Christianity and our faith as well.

I want to let you know about some biographical sketches we have available on our website. One is called The Courageous Leaders Collection. And this collection includes people like Abigail Adams, Abraham Lincoln, Francis Scott Key, George Washington Carver, Susanna Wesley, even the Wright brothers. And there’s a second collection called Heroes of History. In this collection, you’ll read about people like Benjamin Franklin or Christopher Columbus, Daniel Boone, George Washington, Harriet Tubman. Friends, the list goes on and on.

This is a great collection for your young person to have and read and it’s a providential view of American and Christian history. This is available at www.wallbuilders.com. That’s www.wallbuilders.com.

Rick:

We’re back here on WallBuilders Live. We’re going to dive right back into Tim Barton’s presentation at the ProFamily Legislators Conference.

ProFamily Legislators Conference

Tim:

It depicts in the front of the ship, one of the guys who was there with Washington on that night was Prince Whipple. Another guy who made this famous crossing was Oliver Cromwell. Two Black patriots who were with Washington during this journey, historically documented, verified, they were there as part of the force fighting for freedom. July 1777, you have an American General, General Charles Lee, who gets captured.

And when he’s captured, the only way we can get our General back is we have to do a prisoner of war exchange with the same ranking officer. So we need to find a British ranking officer. So General Richard Prescott is the British officer.

We need to capture General Prescott and then we can do a prisoner of war exchange. So this is the idea. Well, how are we going to do that because General Prescott at the time, was on an island that was surrounded by the British fleet? But Colonel William Barton, who is now the guy trying to lead this says, we have an idea that if we get in boats at night, if we wrap cloth around the oars, we might can go in the cover of night when there’s no moon.

We might go to the island. We might can get past their guards. We might can get inside the forts. We might can get to the officers’ quarters, subdue the General, and then bring him out of his quarters, out of the fort, pass the guards, back on our boats, pass the fleet, and back. If we can do that, we can do a prisoner of war exchange. And everybody is like, that’s the dumbest idea ever.

So Colonel Barton says, it looks like this could be a suicide mission, because oh, yeah, one more thing I forgot to mention: you can’t take your guns. Because if a gun goes off, we will instantly be identified. And then we’ll be surrounded, overwhelmed, we all the prisoners of war.

So you can take a fixed bayonet, but you can’t load a gun. You cannot fire a shot. You can take your club, you can take a spear, a pike, you can take some other weapon, but you can’t take guns. So he said, I need volunteers to sign up. 40 men signed up, 20 white men and 20 black men. It’s interesting.

Who Stepped Up?

So this is one of the first special operations unit, at least, relatively speaking in American history. Right? So one of the guys who was there for this special force operation, actually, the hero of this operation was a guy named Jack Sisson.

So what they do is that night they decide okay, we’re going to get in our boats, we’re going to have to go past the fleet, and then we get in, we’re going to have to subdue the guards and so far, so good.

They get in the night, they should do the guards and then they go into where the Generals corners are. The problem was, they get to the door and the door is bolted from the inside. So they have no way to get in and that’s where Jack Sisson steps up. He said everybody out of my way.

This is where think of the best linebacker hit you’ve ever seen in football. Jack lowered his head and charged the door head first. He knocked the door off the hinges, went inside, and the officer was asleep in bed. As the officer hears a noise, wakes up, he starts, Jack runs over. Now, there’s two accounts.

One account says that Jack openhanded smacks him. One says that he backhands him. Maybe it was both, I don’t know. What happened is it rendered him unconscious. Okay? He then and here’s where there’s two accounts. One account says he picked him up under his arm. One says he threw him over her shoulder. It could have been halfway he switched, I don’t know.

But Jack picks him up says alright, guys, let’s go back to the boat. So like Jack has done this by himself, right? So he has them, so they get back to the boats. They pass the guards, they get back, and they’re able to now conduct this prisoner of war exchange because of what Jack Sisson did.

Jack Sisson

And if we think about Special Forces operations today, it actually goes back and starts with people like Jack Sisson, which that would definitely be a story worth noting, because this dude was awesome and helping work out this prisoner of war exchange.

Well, we can even note more significant players in the game, because that was just one moment, and it’s a cool moment, but that’s one moment. Well, there’s something that actually has an even greater impact. If you go to 1791, you know the story probably of the Marquis de Lafayette. Lafayette was the young French Major General.

He was 19 years old when he comes to America, and a lot of people wanted to serve under him because he was kind of wealthy. And Americans at the time didn’t really have the resources, the uniforms the guns. And so if you served under Lafayette, he would buy you everything you needed. So people were like, we want to serve with this guy.

Lafayette for Washington is tasked to do the Recon to know wherever the British are going to be specifically, we need to know where Lord Cornwallis is going. Right? Find him, track him, we need to see what he’s doing. So that is what Lafayette does. He sets up a spy ring to try to track the movements of the officers to get that Intel back to Washington. One of the guys he became friends with is a guy named James Armistead.

Rick:

Alright, friends, last interruption of the day for a break, Tim Barton is speaking on a response to the 1619 project is a presentation at the ProFamily Legislators Conference. Stay with us, we’ll be right back on WallBuilders Live.

Patriot Academy

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Rick:

We’re back here on WallBuilders Live. Jumping right back into Tim Barton’s presentation on a response to the 1619 project.

James Armistead

Tim:

James Armistead is the hero of the story. But let me give you a little context. If you back up, Benedict Arnold was a famous American general who got very frustrated because he kept getting overlooked for promotions and he did have kind of a temper and his wife was a loyalist. So there was a lot of issues with Benedict Arnold.

Well, he decides he’s going to sell out West Point, sell out Washington, he gets caught, and then he has to retreat to the British. So then it becomes a General for the British. Well, as a General for the British, one of the things he did was they conquered Richmond. When they conquered Richmond, James at the time was a slave.

He was a slave in Richmond, but he saw Richmond fall, he went to his master and said, I want to go fight for the Americans. I want to help defend Richmond. And his master said, well, if you want to fight you can.

At a time, the law of Virginia said that if you fight for one year, you could be given your freedom at the end of that year for fighting. So the master knows, like, essentially, you’re going to get your freedom doing this, but he wants to go and fight.

So he goes and fights. Actually, when he signs up, he gets assigned under Lafayette and Lafayette has a spy unit, where we’re trying to get the Intel of the British. And so Lafayette tells James that we want you to go into the British camp and gather whatever intelligence you can and come back and report to me.

So James pretends to be an escaped slave seeking refuge at the British. So it gets in there and he gets to the camp of Benedict Arnold, which is the very reason he wanted to fight in the first place because he doesn’t like Arnold. He gets to the camp and he starts serving in the camp, but he listens to what’s going on, trying to gather Intel to get back to Lafayette so Lafayette can send it to Washington.

Well, as he does this, he starts serving in the camp, he served so well. Benedict Arnold saw him serving just the men and Benedict Arnold says a guy like that shouldn’t serve commoners, he should be serving the officers. So he called James into serve specifically the officers, he then later on makes James his personal assistance.

Here’s what’s interesting. There are two letters in the writings of Lafayette, both are worth reading. The first letter Lafayette writes to Washington and says there is a new spy who has given me better intelligence than all of my other spies combined. His name is James and I trust what he is telling me more than anybody else. And so he’s bragged on James to George Washington.

A Response To The 1619 Project, Part 2 – With Tim Barton A

Well, as they are there he is now serving Benedict Arnold. Benedict Arnold then gets reassigned to serve under Lord Cornwallis. Well, James is the personal assistant, so he goes and serves Benedict Arnold under Cornwallis. Well, he’s now in the officers tent for all the meetings. So he’s hearing all the plans. He’s getting word to Lafayette, who’s getting into Washington.

Here’s what’s interesting about this. As Washington’s now getting new Intel, the Americans start showing up in the right place at the right time, and they start winning some skirmishes the British never thought they would win.

So Cornwallis gets suspicious and he says, I think there’s a spy in the camp. He starts talking to the officers. There’s a spy in the camp. We have a spy. We have to find the spy and we needed to kill him. We can’t let the spy go. And James is hearing all these. So you can imagine the tension in the moment.

Right? Because you’re a spy, you got to play the game. But you know if they catch you, your life is in line. Cornwallis tells you officers leave the tent. He says James, you stay behind.

Rick:

Alright, friends, we’re out of time for today. This was sort of the middle, actually, it was exactly the middle of a three day program where we’re bringing you Tim Barton’s presentation in response to the 1619 project. If you missed yesterday, it’s available on our website right now today at wallbuilderslive.com.

If you tuned in today in the middle of the program, today’s program is available on the website. And tomorrow, we’ll get the conclusion of Tim Barton speaking at the ProFamily Legislators Conference. Thanks for listening today to WallBuilders Live.