So here's what I've learned about Frederick Douglass, the famed speaker, writer, and abolitionist, from David Blight's book about him, Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom, in the first half alone. You might find it interesting:
- As already noted elsewhere, he was a pal of John Brown, the violent, murderous abolitionist. For a moment, Douglass considered getting in with him at Harpers' Ferry, where of course Brown was wounded, captured, tried and executed for treason. He passed on that opportunity, but still had to flee to England for a while (actually, a second time since he'd had to go there because he had earlier published his autobiography, admitting his slave status, including his owner's name, and the fugitive slave laws made it much easier for him to be recaptured and returned to his owner; friends bought him off so he could return) when he learned that the state of Virginia was looking for him. He returned via Canada, still before the Civil War, but the issue of secession in Virginia was too far down the road for the state to legitimize bringing him to justice;
- A month after Lincoln had written the first draft of the Emancipation Proclamation, he invited black leaders to the White House and asked them to consider recolonizing in South America. They said they'd get back to him, meaning that they didn't want to refuse to his face. Douglass was understandably outraged by such a suggestion. But go figure, since Lincoln was one Union victory away from issuing the proclamation, which he got in September--a month after he made the above suggestion--at Antietam;
- Two years later, Lincoln, very afraid of losing the next election, asked Douglass to come up with a plan to do basically what Brown had tried to do--rally the slaves to come north to emancipation. Before he could do so, though, the war had again intervened with Sherman's taking of Atlanta and his embarking on the March to the Sea and Admiral Farragut's ('Damn the torpedoes--full speed ahead!') victory at Mobile Bay, which convinced enough voters that the war had broken out of stalemate and would be won;
- Two of Douglass' sons joined the 54th Massachusetts Infantry, the one depicted in the movie Glory. One of them was held back by illness, but one of them fought in the famous battle of Fort Wagner, South Carolina, in which the 54th was thrown against impregnable barricades in an almost suicidal charge, and broke through before finally being thrown back with horrendous losses. Douglass' son survived the battle, amazingly, though badly wounded; and
- Douglass met a German woman, Ottilie Assing, during his time in England and probably (though no notes exist that specify it) had an affair with her, sometimes staying for up to a week at her place in Hoboken, New Jersey. She became obsessed with him and had followed him back to the States, even staying at his home with his wife there. She clearly had designs on getting him to divorce and marry her, but he did not follow up. Yet, she was received at their home in Rochester, New York, every time she visited and stayed. She provided Douglass with the intellectual mate that his simple wife could not provide. Amazingly, the marriage stayed together. No writings between the two lovers survive; Assing had his letters to her destroyed upon her death.
It's an exhaustive book, a masterpiece of research and written in dramatic style. It's harder to keep up with after emancipation, since that's Douglass' focus and goal, but he did a lot of living after that, too. Blight must have gotten access to letters and papers that no one else has. There are other works on Douglass, and good ones, but this one is a tour de force. I doubt that anyone can write a more definitive study of this indefatigable, brilliant, intimidating person.
His voice was a deep baritone, which gave even deeper meaning to his stunning rhetoric. He challenged people's beliefs and sometimes upset them to the point of being run out of town. But in a time in which even free blacks were a distinctly lower class and often lived obscure lives out of the mainstream, Douglass never flinched from testifying to his experience as a slave. He began his speaking career in the shadow of William Lloyd Garrison, but separated from him when he became too independent, going it alone. It had to take incredible courage to do that.
But he never backed off. Whites needed to accept blacks as true equals or freedom from slavery would mean little. That was rough stuff in those days, and Northern whites didn't always like it, either. Douglass liked to poke the eyes of Northeners, exposing their hypocrisy. He wasn't an Uncle Tom. He didn't go along to get along, though he sometimes had to play politics with his preferences.
He didn't shy away from controversy, either. When his black first wife died, he got the white mistress to go away and married another white woman more than twenty years his junior. That got people's attention: Congress even stopped to glance at him when he and the new missus came to sit in the gallery.
Ironically, one of his main life goals was to be appointed to a government position. That happened twice; he was made a marshal of the District of Columbia, and minister to Haiti. He also assisted in a mission to try to make part of the Dominican Republic subservient to U.S. interests, which failed. He also found himself taking the Haitian government's position in its conflicts with the U.S., which had designs on the coal in the region to fuel its growing navy. That led to his resignation just a year and a half after taking over.
That didn't stop two continuous themes from playing themselves out after the war: That he was honored as a wise sage and solicited to speak anywhere and everywhere; and Jim-Crowed, at times, when he went south to do so. Nonetheless, he honored numerous requests to speak throughout the country, gaining a sobriquet, Old Man Eloquent. Having paved the way for Lincoln to free the slaves, he launched an attack upon the South, which had caved to the Redeemers; and what logically followed in their path, white supremacy with the disenfranchisement of the blacks. Worse, it brought on the horrible practice of lynching, quite evident well into the 20th Century.
He was considered a godfather of sorts of future adherents such as Ida B. Wells and James Weldon Johnson, appearing with them to give them initial ballast for their passions. He published two newspapers, wrote letters and comments and made personal appearances right up to his death, at age 78, in 1895. W. E. B. DuBois heard him speak in Boston in 1892; Blight believes he was inspired by Douglass.
That Douglass couldn't conquer white supremacy cannot be laid on his doorstep. We are still fighting those vestiges today, witness the recent death of a black man at the hands of white cops in Minneapolis. The year after his death, in fact, the Supreme Court caved to those attitudes with its ruling in Plessy v. Ferguson, in which "separate but equal" was ruled to be legally acceptable in public facilities. It took more than half a century for that to be reasonably reversed in Brown v. Board, except school boards, city councils, and state legislatures searched for and often found ways to get around that ruling almost from its outset.
But Douglass' achievements cannot be overstressed. Son of a raped woman (he never found out who his real father was), having escaped slavery and taking the incredible risk of writing his autobiography and putting himself into danger of being re-sold back into bondage, fleeing to England twice to escape predators, he strove on to become one of the nation's greatest orators. This enormous work (764 pages) is as complete an account of his life as has been published, and the author does his best to keep placing you into context. It'll take you some time, but this is stirring history, and well worth it.
Be well. Be careful. With some luck, I'll see you down the road.
Mister Mark
He didn't shy away from controversy, either. When his black first wife died, he got the white mistress to go away and married another white woman more than twenty years his junior. That got people's attention: Congress even stopped to glance at him when he and the new missus came to sit in the gallery.
Ironically, one of his main life goals was to be appointed to a government position. That happened twice; he was made a marshal of the District of Columbia, and minister to Haiti. He also assisted in a mission to try to make part of the Dominican Republic subservient to U.S. interests, which failed. He also found himself taking the Haitian government's position in its conflicts with the U.S., which had designs on the coal in the region to fuel its growing navy. That led to his resignation just a year and a half after taking over.
That didn't stop two continuous themes from playing themselves out after the war: That he was honored as a wise sage and solicited to speak anywhere and everywhere; and Jim-Crowed, at times, when he went south to do so. Nonetheless, he honored numerous requests to speak throughout the country, gaining a sobriquet, Old Man Eloquent. Having paved the way for Lincoln to free the slaves, he launched an attack upon the South, which had caved to the Redeemers; and what logically followed in their path, white supremacy with the disenfranchisement of the blacks. Worse, it brought on the horrible practice of lynching, quite evident well into the 20th Century.
He was considered a godfather of sorts of future adherents such as Ida B. Wells and James Weldon Johnson, appearing with them to give them initial ballast for their passions. He published two newspapers, wrote letters and comments and made personal appearances right up to his death, at age 78, in 1895. W. E. B. DuBois heard him speak in Boston in 1892; Blight believes he was inspired by Douglass.
That Douglass couldn't conquer white supremacy cannot be laid on his doorstep. We are still fighting those vestiges today, witness the recent death of a black man at the hands of white cops in Minneapolis. The year after his death, in fact, the Supreme Court caved to those attitudes with its ruling in Plessy v. Ferguson, in which "separate but equal" was ruled to be legally acceptable in public facilities. It took more than half a century for that to be reasonably reversed in Brown v. Board, except school boards, city councils, and state legislatures searched for and often found ways to get around that ruling almost from its outset.
But Douglass' achievements cannot be overstressed. Son of a raped woman (he never found out who his real father was), having escaped slavery and taking the incredible risk of writing his autobiography and putting himself into danger of being re-sold back into bondage, fleeing to England twice to escape predators, he strove on to become one of the nation's greatest orators. This enormous work (764 pages) is as complete an account of his life as has been published, and the author does his best to keep placing you into context. It'll take you some time, but this is stirring history, and well worth it.
Be well. Be careful. With some luck, I'll see you down the road.
Mister Mark
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