While contemplating the complex self image that each of us develops during childhood, I find it remarkable to note that during his enslaved boyhood, Frederick Douglass (who had been separated from his mother at birth, could not understand why white men could own black men, women and children) devised a creative way to teach himself to read and write in direct defiance of his master. And following his courageous escape to the North at the age of twenty, Douglass became revered within the abolitionist movement as an eloquent orator and writer extraordinaire. Between 1845 and 1892 Douglass, knowing himself a hunted fugitive, penned and published three autobiographies, all of which received such widespread acclaim that many printings of each had to be ordered to accommodate supply with demand—
This fact also proves highly remarkable: The number of biographies published about the life of Frederick Douglass, suggests that my being awestruck sees me in the company of countless literary figures who have been so deeply impressed with Douglass’s brilliance as to have chosen to make a study of his remarkable life. And now, let’s invite Frederick Douglass—fathered by his master, torn from his mother’s arms after birth, and raised within the horrendous reality of slavery—to speak for himself:
“It is somewhat remarkable, that, at a time when knowledge is so generally diffused, when the geography of the world is so well understood—when time and space, in the intercourse of nations, are almost annihilated—when oceans have become bridges—the earth a magnificent hall—the hollow sky a dome—under which a common humanity can meet in friendly conclave—when nationalities are being swallowed up—and the ends of the earth brought together—I say it is remarkable—nay, it is strange that there should arise a phalanx of learned men—speaking in the name of science—to forbid the magnificent reunion of mankind in one brotherhood. A mortifying proof is here given, that the moral growth of a nation, or an age, does not always keep pace with the increase of knowledge, and suggests the necessity of means to increase human love with human learning.”
Excerpt from Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
“The temptation therefore to read the Negro out of the human family is exceedingly strong, and may account somewhat for the repeated attempts on the part of Southern pretenders to science, to cast a doubt over the Scriptural account of the origin of mankind. If the origin and motives of most works, opposing the doctrine of the unity of the human race, could be ascertained, it may be doubted whether one such work could boast an honest parentage. Pride and selfishness, combined with mental power, never want for a theory to justify them—and when men oppress their fellow-men, the oppressor ever finds, in the character of the oppressed, a full justification for his oppression. Ignorance and depravity, and the inability to rise from degradation to civilization and respectability, are the most usual allegations against the oppressed. The evils most fostered by slavery and oppression are precisely those which slaveholders and oppressors would transfer from their system to the inherent character of their victims. Thus the very crimes of slavery become slavery’s best defence. By making the enslaved a character fit only for slavery, they excuse themselves for refusing to make the slave a freeman.”
Excerpt from Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
Wikipedia:
Frederick Douglass (born Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey, c. February 1817 or 1818[a] – February 20, 1895) was an African-American social reformer, abolitionist, orator, writer, and statesman. After escaping from slavery in Maryland, he became a national leader of the abolitionist movement in Massachusetts and New York, becoming famous for his oratory[4] and incisive antislavery writings. Accordingly, he was described by abolitionists in his time as a living counterexample to slaveholders' arguments that slaves lacked the intellectual capacity to function as independent American citizens.[5] Likewise, Northerners at the time found it hard to believe that such a great orator had once been a slave.[6]
“Frederick Douglass sits in the pantheon of Black history figures: Born into slavery, he made a daring escape north, wrote best-selling autobiographies and went on to become one of the nation’s most powerful voices against human bondage. He stands as the most influential civil and human rights advocate of the 19th century.
Perhaps his greatest legacy? He never shied away from hard truths.
Because even as he wowed 19th-century audiences in the U.S. and England with his soaring eloquence and patrician demeanor, even as he riveted readers with his published autobiographies, Douglass kept them focused on the horrors he and millions of others endured as enslaved American: the relentless indignities, the physical violence, the families ripped apart. And he blasted the hypocrisy of a slave-holding nation touting liberty and justice for all.” —Yohuru Williams
In order for white slaveholders to deny being cold- hearted predators, they ‘believed’ slave families were little more than brutish beasts. In fact, horses and cows (that could not speak much less read and write) were tended to much more kindly than were brutally enslaved men, women and children, forced to survive whippings so criminally severe as to draw rivers of blood if the master discovered covert attempts to read and write.
While contemplating the complex self image that each person develops during childhood, I wonder if you’ve ever asked yourself: Though raised by loving parents, how much liberty did I have at home to grow to become my best independent self (free of undeserved parental guilt) during my youth? And how often does undeserved guilt continue to haunt my sense of inner peace to this very day?
🙋🏻♀️Annie
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