hear from craig syphax. he discusses friedman's village, which was built on the grounds of the original 1100 acre estate. >> i am craig syphax, president of the black heritage museum of arlington. the black heritage museum has a are a -- one of our goals is to enrich the story of freeman's village. we have worked with marymount university, with the smithsonian in getting research and understanding the freeman story. formed inntity that weather was an outbreak of smallpox because of the emancipation. everyone migrated to the washington, d.c. area and created an outbreak of smallpox. during this outbreak, the army contacted the american military association, a group of women who were nurses that cared for injured soldiers and they asked them what was the best way to contain the smallpox and they came up with an idea to put them all in one area of containment that way and that created friedman's village. the residents were emancipated slaves who came this way because there were jobs in the washington, d.c. area

syphax, which was my father. sometimes i walk these grounds and i feel like i'm in the shoes of those before me and i look around and i feel empowered sometimes and i feel a new strength to want to carry on with the work that i am doing. >> you can watch this and other american artifacts programs by visiting our website at c-span.org/history. >>> you're watching american history tv, all weekend every weekend on c-span 3. to join the conversation, "like" us on conversation at c-span history. >>> next, on american history tv, author walter borneman is the author and the macarthur memorial in norfolk, virginia, hosted this conference. this portion is about 1:10. >>> the timing of this symposium is intentional. 75 years ago next week, general macarthur was recalled from retirement to service that helped define both him and asia for many years to come. in asia as in much of the world, 1845 is yesterday and to understand the modern world, or to understand much of the modern world, you have to understand the stories we'

one of the prominent older children, second child, first son of the syphaxs is william syphax. we know he was probably educated in alexandria arlington area as well as georgetown. he ultimately went to work for the department of the interior in the 1850s, he worked for a number of secretaries the interior and actually became a head messenger for the department of the interior and went on to become the first president of the colored trustees of the colored schools in washington, d.c. >> there were a number of ancestors and descendents of these folks, the syphaxs, that have made a prominent impact on our country. one example would be creston gleed, a tuskegee airman. we have a number of women who taught around the country. we have 30 syphaxs that we know that attended howard university. several of which turned around and became teachers at howard university we have a well known teacher who was a very prominent surgeon professor teacher at howard university. and we have jewel i don't know d -- julian dixon, a congressman from california, who passed away in 2000 but served in the u

so we recently reenacted that wedding with descendants of the syphax family in attendance, representing both mariah and charles. there was also another wedding that took place here and that was the wedding of selena norris and thorton gray, also enslaved. selena, a maid in the house, and thornton gray, who worked in the mansion as well. so that was arranged and this wedding took place in this parlor. and selena gray and her family would live in one of the two historic slave quarters that we maintain, that still exist and that are going to be restored as a part of this big project as well. now you can see this room is somewhat empty of furnishings and that's representative of the fact that right now we are in the process of removing furnishings with artifacts from display so by the end of the year we'll begin the restoration project. but all of the furnishings have to be removed before we can do that work. you can see the boxes in place and preparation being made. as we walk down the hallway, you also see empty places on the walls. there are numerous -- historically there were numerous p