Claim: Timberland's founder was a slave owner

Question

I've been hearing through word of mouth and on social media posts that Timberland's logo was a tree that used to be utilized to hang slaves. There was even a rumor spread faster due to an African-American poet who stated this in a poem. Was the founder of Timberland racist?

Answer 1

The owner of Timberland, Nathan Swartz was a Ukrainian immigrant who took over a shoe company in Boston, Massachusetts in the 1950s. I wasn't able to find anything about Swartz being a slave owner. According to AFP Fact Check, The Facebook post posted on February 14, 2022, said, "Timberland 'Whip A Ni66a' Hawkins was one of the biggest racist of all time. In fact he owned sooo many slaves during the 1700s he couldn't auction them all off so he would hang them from a tree in his field." The post had an image of a man, but not of Nathan Swartz. 

So I'd say this claim is completely false. 

Answer 2

This information is false. First, owning slaves has been illegal in the United States since 1865. Timberland was founded in 1952. The timeline simply does not support this claim being true. The Timberland logo is meant to represent the outdoor nature of the brand and where it came from. That being said, perhaps the owner of Timberland was racist... and that it a topic of discussion for a different post. But that does not mean that he was a slave owner. Below is a link to two articles about the validity of this statement. They go into more detail about the origination of this claim and the falsity of it.

https://factcheck.afp.com/doc.afp.com.329W4MX

https://africacheck.org/fact-checks/meta-programme-fact-checks/no-timberlands-logo-doesnt-celebrate-lynching-tree