Nevertheless...Frederick Douglass

 “It is not light that we need, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake.”--Frederick Douglass

There are few people as well spoken, intelligent, fierce, strong, and passionate who have been as glossed over by history as Frederick Douglass. He is an intimidating presence to be sure, but he’s also a voice of strength and compassion about fighting oppression and injustice that needs to be heard, especially now. An escaped slave from Maryland, he delivered an Independence Day address in 1852 before an almost entirely white audience, his famous speech “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July.” The speech addresses the unfairness, the inequality, and the absolute horrors that the Fourth of July inflicted on those who could only watch the celebration, enslaved as they were to white people. 

The speech is poignant even now, in a time when the government is harassing people based on skin color, pulling them from cars, and separating children and parents. We can learn so much from Frederick Douglass by looking at his life, rather than if we only look at that speech, and all of it is necessary today. (Side note: this is by no means a comprehensive biography or even a very in-depth biography of Mr. Douglass. I could write more about him, but that length is not advisable for a blog post.)

Frederick Douglass, born in February of 1818, was passed from slave owner to slave owner until he landed with the Auld’s in Maryland. There, he was taught by his master’s wife how to read and write. The man was not happy with this, saying that being literate was how slaves would free themselves. Douglass took this to heart, saying that he saw immediately what his road to freedom would look like. He once famously said, “Once you learn to read, you will be forever free.” And is there a truer statement? Hardly. I’ve touched on this before, but reading is the gateway to free thinking. It teaches compassion and empathy. It shows how to ask the hard questions and look for a deeper meaning. It’s a way to learn the things we never would have thought to ask in the first place, and most of all, writing can show us the secrets that people don’t want us to know. 

In the United States, over half of adults read at or below a sixth-grade reading level. And you don’t have to go far to see an example of what that’s done to people’s spelling and grammar (which is especially sad considering all the grammar-checking apps that are out there), just look at any social media comments section. The scary thing is, the current administration doesn’t want you to read. They don’t want you to care. Why do you think they want you on TikTok? Because if you’re doomscrolling through social media, you aren’t reading or learning anything that will tell you how wrong pretty much everything they are doing is. This government doesn’t want freethinkers, they want mindless followers—people who can’t think for themselves. 

Frederick Douglass and his wife settled in Rochester, New York, and had five children. Douglass, though, was seldom around. He was outspoken, and his very presence attracted attention. He traveled the country and overseas, preaching the evils of and working to abolish slavery. And while he was angry, while he didn’t necessarily forget, he did forgive, because he didn’t want to be like his oppressors. Ten years after escaping slavery, he wrote an open letter to his former owner, describing what he went through and how this man would feel if his daughter were taken away and treated the same. But at the end of the letter, he adds, “there is no roof under which you would be safer than mine, and there is nothing in my house which you might need for comfort, which I would not readily grant. Indeed, I should esteem it a privilege to set you an example as to how mankind ought to treat each other.”

Douglass campaigned for black suffrage, especially during and after the Civil War, stating the obvious, that if black men could die for their country and freedom, they should be allowed to vote as well. Unfortunately, that wasn’t obvious back then. It seems people have forgotten that even today, as the current presidential administration works to remove people’s right to vote. And rights for one should be rights for all, Douglass believed, and so he preached, helping women campaign for their right to vote as well.  And Douglass was not a sexist; his first wife, Anna, with whom he was until her death and whose death is said to have shattered him, was the person who helped him escape. He got along well with women, seeing in them kindred spirits and maintaining that women were just as strong as men (don’t forget, it was he who gave Ida B. Wells her platform in Chicago at the 1893 Columbian Exposition). 

Douglass would live until 1895 in Washington, DC, working for equal rights, delivering speeches, and learning more until the day he died. He was constantly learning, wanting to do more good, to make things right for everyone. He famously said, “I would unite with anybody to do right and with nobody to do wrong.” We have to remember this. Just because we are different colors, different sexes, different religions, we all deserve our rights; we need to fight for each other’s rights. Those idiots in masks and law enforcement cosplay are not who we should want to be; that is not how we as a country should want to be seen. 

We should not bow before a government that demands that we be cruel to one another, that teaches us that people don’t belong anywhere because of how they look, and that says anyone shouldn’t have equal rights. We should not bow before anyone. Nobody should bow to a king, a slave owner or a dictator. Frederick Douglass got to see some strides made during his lifetime, and while we aren’t at the point of slavery, imagine how angry and ashamed he would be to see how far we have slid backward. Don’t give up hope. We’ve come so far, and we will move forward again. We just need to stop what is happening now, before it’s too late. 

Sources

“9 Greatest Frederick Douglass Quotes.” Advancement Project, 14 Feb. 2020, advancementproject.org/perspective/9-greatest-frederick-douglass-quotes/.

Douglass, Frederick . “Frederick Douglass National Historic Site (U.S. National Park Service).” Nps.gov, 2016, www.nps.gov/frdo/index.htm.

“Frederick Douglass | Freedom and Citizenship.” Freedomandcitizenship.columbia.edu, freedomandcitizenship.columbia.edu/content/frederick-douglass.

“Frederick Douglass Quotes.” BrainyQuote, www.brainyquote.com/quotes/frederick_douglass_134570.

“Homepage.” Literacy Project Foundation, literacyproj.org/.

Smithsonian. “Frederick Douglass.” National Museum of African American History and Culture, nmaahc.si.edu/explore/stories/frederick-douglass.