Vice President Kamala Harris misstated the length of time Black persons were enslaved in America during an event Monday marking Juneteenth.
“Think about it in terms of the context of history, knowing that black people in America were not free for 400 years of slavery,” she told children at the National Museum of African American History & Culture in Washington. “Let this be a day that is a day to celebrate the principle of freedom, but to speak about it honestly and accurately, both in the context of history and current application.”
The first Black slaves were brought to Virginia in 1619 and the 13th Amendment abolished slavery in 1865, so the vice president was off by about 150 years.