As noted here, that banquet was attended by prominent African-American professional men in celebration of the twenty-first anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation. They did so in the form of a resolution; and as we seldom hit upon resolutions, drawn up in our day whose transparency is at all equal to this, it may refresh your minds and help my story if I read it. One is struck with the difference between the attitude of the American church towards the anti-slavery movement, and that occupied by the churches in England towards a similar movement in that country. Such a declaration of agreement on my part would not be worth much to anybody. We have put together a list of thefollowing speeches that have opened the minds of the American citizens to the uncountable cases of injustices inflicted on the black community through slavery. I have detained my audience entirely too long already. Frederick Douglass Paper, March 4, 1853 The duty to extirpate and destroy it, is admitted even by our DOCTORS OF DIVINITY. He saw the Supreme Court demolish hard-won laws that granted Black citizens political power. Fellow-citizens, I shall not presume to dwell at length on the associations that cluster about this day. Resolved, That these united colonies are, and of right, ought to be free and Independent States; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown; and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, dissolved.. For who is there so cold, that a nations sympathy could not warm him? The time was when such could be done. Until the colored man's right to practice at the bar of our courts, and sit upon juries, shall be the universal law and practice of the land, this discussion will go on. Fighting Rebels With Only One Hand See, too, that girl of thirteen, weeping, yes! White spectators openly gushed about Douglass muscular, yet lithe and graceful 6-foot, 200-pound frame, his full and rich baritone, and compared him to an African prince.. It is neither. Correspondence, scrapbooks of clippings, print material such as articles and reports, and other papers, all dating from the Civil War into the first few decades of the 20th century. Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey was born into slavery on the Eastern Shore of Maryland in February 1818. Further, if this demand were not complied with, another Scotland would be added to the history of religious liberty, and the stern old Covenanters would be thrown into the shade. As the champions of oppressors, the chosen men of American theology have appeared men, honored for their so-called piety, and their real learning. Updated Behold the practical operation of this internal slave-trade, the American slave-trade, sustained by American politics and America religion. The first autobiography, The Narrative of the Life of Frederick In a case like that, the dumb might eloquently speak, and the lame man leap as an hart.. Download it once and read it on your Kindle device, PC, phones No abuse, no outrage whether in taste, sport or avarice, can now hide itself from the all-pervading light. WebThis is a list of films produced and distributed by HBO Films. Douglass Monthly, November 1861 I leave, therefore, the great deeds of your fathers to other gentlemen whose claim to have been regularly descended will be less likely to be disputed than mine! Updates? This includes commencement invitations from historically black colleges and universities, a fourth edition of Lunsford Lane's slave narrative, and newspaper clippings. The country was attempting to build its first multiracial democracy through the passage of the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments, which ended slavery, granted Black men the right to vote and introduced birthright citizenship. The Nebraska ControversyThe True Issue Frederick Douglass Paper, April 25, 1856 There is hope in the thought, and hope is much needed, under the dark clouds which lower above the horizon. The incoming correspondence has been arranged into letters pertaining to Hunter's business or community activities and letters relating to Hunter's personal life. Voters wait in line to cast their ballots during a primary on March 3, 2020, in San Antonio, Texas. Yet to freeze-frame Douglass life in the familiar contours of 19th-century American history misses out on the radical nature of his Composite Nation (also known as Our Composite Nationality) speech. Escape from slavery, life in New Bedford, and work with the American Anti-Slavery Society, Involvement with John Brown, Abraham Lincoln, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Susan B. Anthony, Move to Washington, D.C., the Freedmans Bank, government office-holding, and later years. The fiat of the Almighty, Let there be Light, has not yet spent its force. Until the colored man's pathway to the American ballot box, North and South, shall be as smooth and as safe as the same is for the white citizen, this discussion will go on. Read the full text below of the sage words from one of the greatest orators of all time. By that act, Mason and Dixons line has been obliterated; New York has become as Virginia; and the power to hold, hunt, and sell men, women, and children as slaves remains no longer a mere state institution, but is now an institution of the whole United States. American County Histories: A Unique Resource! The True Issue Our eyes are met with demonstrations of joyous enthusiasm. Your fathers were wise men, and if they did not go mad, they became restive under this treatment. He argued that freedom would be empty if former slaves were not guaranteed the rights and protections of American citizens. Inspired by David Blights Pulitzer Prize winning biography, Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom and executive produced by scholar Henry Louis Gates, Jr. (Black Art: In the Absence of Light), the film features narration of Douglass autobiographies by Andr Holland and context provided by Blight and Gates to remind us how Frederick Douglass words about racial injustice still resonate deeply today. And let me warn you that it is dangerous to copy the example of a nation whose crimes, lowering up to heaven, were thrown down by the breath of the Almighty, burying that nation in irrecoverable ruin! How circumspect, exact and proportionate were all their movements! Valedictory I lived on Philpot Street, Fells Point, Baltimore, and have watched from the wharves, the slave ships in the Basin, anchored from the shore, with their cargoes of human flesh, waiting for favorable winds to waft them down the Chesapeake. Walled cities and empires have become unfashionable. The Union and How to Save It But neither their familiar faces, nor the perfect gage I think I have of Corinthian Hall, seems to free me from embarrassment. New York, New York, May 11, 1847 As to extinction, the prospect in that direction has been greatly clouded by the census just taken, in which it is seen that our increase is ten per cent. To My American Readers and Friends Conservative American politicians have expressed open admiration for leaders such as Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who is widely seen as eroding democracy in his country in part by demonizing immigrants and eroding democratic norms. Many contemporary Americans seem pessimistic about the prospect of building a modern-day Composite Nation a multiracial, multiethnic and multireligious democracy that reflects the changing demographics of the country. Douglass wrote an open letter his former master, Thomas Auld, who prior to It might seem far-fetched, but weve already seen the alternatives in the January 6 insurrection and the mounting sense of dread many Americans now feel about the future. They did not come because its leaders disparaged the poor, incarcerated racial or political minorities, or mocked the handicapped and those whose sexual orientation did not fit in faux religious boxes. To do so, would be to make myself ridiculous, and to offer an insult to your understanding. Did this law concern the mint, anise, and cumin abridge the right to sing psalms, to partake of the sacrament, or to engage in any of the ceremonies of religion, it would be smitten by the thunder of a thousand pulpits. I remember, also, that, as a people, Americans are remarkably familiar with all facts which make in their own favor. Africa is too far off, even if we desired to go there, which we do not. Douglass closed out his speech with the following emphasis on the continued presence of black Americans in the United States, their allegiance and willingness to assume their full role in developing the countrys success. The Sharps, the Clarksons, the Wilberforces, the Buxtons, and Burchells and the Knibbs, were alike famous for their piety, and for their philanthropy. A John Knox would be seen at every church door, and heard from every pulpit, and Fillmore would have no more quarter than was shown by Knox, to the beautiful, but treacherous queen Mary of Scotland. What have I, or those I represent, to do with your national independence? An Address Most noteable is a transcription of Frederick Douglass' speech given at the 2nd Annual Oh! I am not that man. Wasted Magnanimity They showed forbearance; but that they knew its limits. Great streams are not easily turned from channels, worn deep in the course of ages. The speech, reported in the to place your order. They seized upon eternal principles, and set a glorious example in their defense. A worship that can be conducted by persons who refuse to give shelter to the houseless, to give bread to the hungry, clothing to the naked, and who enjoin obedience to a law forbidding these acts of mercy, is a curse, not a blessing to mankind. He can bring no witnesses for himself. In this 1894 speech, Douglass spoke plainly about the use of lynching to terrorize Black Americans and prevent them from building social or political power. I was glad to find one who sympathized with me in my horror. In a final celebratory post for Black History Month 2023, it is worth returning to the 1883 Douglass Banquet. Douglass Monthly, April 1861 I want a home here not only for the Negro, the mulatto and the Latin races; but I want the Asiatic to find home here in the United States, and feel at home here, both for his sake and for ours, Douglass said. You must give them all or take from them all. Sydney Smith tells us that men seldom eulogize the wisdom and virtues of their fathers, but to excuse some folly or wickedness of their own. Washington, D .C ., April 14, 1876 The Dred Scott Decision: An Address The population of the country, at the time, stood at the insignificant number of three millions. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ). Slavery is not abolished until the black man has the ballot. (1865), We ought to have our government so shaped that even when in the hands of a bad man we shall be safe. (1867). The Claims of the Negro Ethnologically Considered: An Address Douglass Monthly, November 1862 Why Should a Colored Man Enlist? Demands of the Hour Citizens, your fathers made good that resolution. Douglass used this speech to frame the coming post-Civil War debate over the nature of a true and lasting peace, even as Confederate and Union Armies were still engaged on the field of battle. Here are such powerful works as What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?, Douglasss incandescent jeremiad skewering the hypocrisy of the slaveholding republic; The Claims of the Negro Ethnologically Considered, a full-throated refutation of nineteenth-century racial pseudoscience; Is it Right and Wise to Kill a Kidnapper?, an urgent call for forceful opposition to the Fugitive Slave Act; How to End the War, in which Douglass advocates, just days after the fall of Fort Sumter, for the raising of Black troops and the military destruction of slavery; There Was a Right Side in the Late War, Douglasss no-holds-barred attack on the Lost Cause mythology of the Confederacy; and Lessons of the Hour, an impassioned denunciation of lynching and disenfranchisement in the emerging Jim Crow South. Frederick Douglass was known as a bold and passionate speaker. Hear his savage yells and his blood-chilling oaths, as he hurries on his affrighted captives! Everywhere, in this country, it is safe to speak of this foreign slave-trade, as a most inhuman traffic, opposed alike to the laws of God and of man. The Real Peril of the Republic Albert Barnes but uttered what the common sense of every man at all observant of the actual state of the case will receive as truth, when he declared that There is no power out of the church that could sustain slavery an hour, if it were not sustained in it.. or is it in the temple? Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. Amongst Hunter's writings are several pieces intended for a local encyclopedia which detail historic locales and important North Carolina men. Douglass Monthly, March 1863 The population was weak and scattered, and the country a wilderness unsubdued. Douglass believed that on a day when white Americans What Abraham Lincoln said in respect of the United States is as true of the colored people as of the relations of those States. There are forces in operation, which must inevitably work the downfall of slavery. The din of business, too, is hushed. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake. And as a bonus for reading to the very end, here are a couple of quotes from Frederick Douglass that I encourage you to reflect on as we honor him today: Jeralyn Caveis a Senior Communications Associate with Advancement Projects Power & Democracy Campaign. The Fugitive SlaveLawmakes mercy to them a crime; and bribes the judge who tries them. Yet they persevered. I doubt if there be another nation on the globe, having the brass and the baseness to put such a law on the statute-book. The North American Review, July 1884 The North American Review, May 1886 Chinese immigrants were being attacked and lynched by mobs, and by 1882 the US Congress would pass the Chinese Exclusion Act, the first significant law restricting immigration in the US. He was way ahead of his time, says Bromell, author of The Powers of Dignity: The Black Political Philosophy of Frederick Douglass., He was speaking for a multiracial, diverse America in the 1860s, he says. But it is answered in reply to all this, that precisely what I have now denounced is, in fact, guaranteed and sanctioned by the Constitution of the United States; that the right to hold and to hunt slaves is a part of that Constitution framed by the illustrious Fathers of this Republic. WebThe Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. Former President Ronald Reagan, once the face of the GOP, described the US in his 1989 farewell address as a nation teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace, with doors open to anyone with the will and heart to get here., But Donald Trump, the leader of todays GOP, has long expressed hostility to non-White immigrants coming to the US from s***hole countries.. (LogOut/ Is it at the gateway? 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