April 9, 2022
My interest in Frederick Douglass was kindled
about twenty years ago, on the second Saturday of the month, while
drinking beer and discussing books with my friends.
During a break, as often happened before today’s toxicity
made such discussions too fraught to attempt, I was talking
politics. On the subject of affirmative action and the general state
of society I was told that Frederick Douglass was the proof and
exemplar for why affirmative action should be abolished, why welfare
encouraged sloth and dependency, why minorities crying for their
rights were just whiners looking for a free ride.
“If Frederick Douglass could rise from slavery, overcome
incredible obstacles, teach himself to read and write, and become
one of the greatest orators of his age, then complaints from today’s
minorities are nothing but excuses for the inferiority of their
culture and their unwillingness to embrace the self-made man ethic
that their own Frederick Douglass preached.”
To refute the absurdity of the logic in that
remark was as easy as it was fruitless.
But somehow, as well, I intuited that the Douglass used at
the center of the argument represented an abuse of history.
My problem, however, was my ignorance.
I knew the story of Frederick Douglass in the way that most
school children know that George Washington chopped down a cherry
tree – myth taught as history that we all hope is not too far from
the truth, but fear it is.
At that moment a small seed was planted in my brain – I would
learn who Frederick Douglass really was.
I bought the three autobiographies of Frederick
Douglass, plus some collected speeches, and placed them on my
bookshelf. And so they
sat, collecting dust, being dusted, and waiting.
The seed had not germinated, but neither had it died.
Then recently two events woke the idea from
dormancy.
David W. Blight won a Pulitzer Prize in 2019
for his biography Frederick Douglass, Prophet of Freedom,
and the Black Lives Matter movement awakened my consciousness of the
legacy of slavery in America and my role, for good or bad, in its
resolution. I determined
that this was my chance to learn about Frederick Douglass, his
important role in American history, and how his legacy might
influence me personally.
And so I sit, twenty years later, on the second
Saturday of the month, discussing this book with my friends.
Blight’s biography is worthy of the praise and accolades it
has garnered, excellent in its execution of both the depth and
breadth of a long and storied life.
And storied Douglass’s life is, first of all through
Douglass’s own words: three autobiographies, years of newspaper
pieces, and innumerable speeches.
Still Blight is able to reveal much more of the complete
Douglass than Douglass himself was willing to reveal, which makes
Frederick Douglass, Prophet of Freedom a welcome fulfillment to
my 20-year-old pledge.
I learned that Douglass was a self-made man who
preached self-reliance, but not in the childish sense that was
alluded to me 20 years ago.
Douglass escaped slavery and taught himself to be a great
orator through extraordinary and unrelenting effort.
But he also received plenty of help, was extremely lucky at
many crucial junctures in his life, and was undoubtedly a natural
genius of word and voice.
His mantra of self-reliance always began by requiring a
foundation of fair treatment and ended with a call to remove all
discriminatory barriers to success.
Douglass was a radical and a revolutionary; he can be used as
a model in support of conservative ideology only though incredible
bouts of selective historical amnesia.
I was born nearly 150 years after Frederick
Baily, but his words sound surprisingly modern to me.
As I read more and more of his speeches, I recognized echoes
of his words in the mouths of Malcom X and today’s Black Lives
Matter protesters.
Douglass could easily have been the inspiration for the 1619
Project, and he often referred to 1619 as the date of America’s
original sin. His words ring
with truth and moral clarity even today.
The irony is not lost on me that I am called
upon today to give a speech about one of the greatest orators in
American history. So it
is both fitting and wise that I fall back on Douglass’s own words,
this from his famous “Fourth of July” speech from 1852.
After exposing the hypocrisy of a nation celebrating freedom
while four million men, women, and children were held as slaves in
the South, with collusion from the North, Douglass held forth with
righteous indignation.
“At a time like this, scorching irony, not
convincing argument, is needed. O! had I the ability, and could I
reach the nation’s ear, I would, to-day, pour out a fiery stream of
biting ridicule, blasting reproach, withering sarcasm, and stern
rebuke. For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the
gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and
the earthquake. The feeling of the nation must be quickened; the
conscience of the nation must be roused; the propriety of the nation
must be startled; the hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed; and
its crimes against God and man must be proclaimed and denounced.”
I cannot read these words without being inspired, without thinking that I must do more with my life to right the historic wrongs that slavery wrought and that still permeate American society. And that is why Frederick Douglass is worth remembering and reading today.
Chris Mack is a writer in Austin, Texas.
© Copyright 2022, Chris Mack.
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