Today is the birthday of one of the most important figures in American history:
Frederick Douglass was born into slavery on the Eastern Shore of Maryland in 1818 and named Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey. He became one of the most famous black men in the nation during a life where he consistently fought for human rights. Hired out to work in Baltimore, he taught himself to read and write, and escaped slavery in 1838 with the help of a free black woman who later became his wife.
How should we honor Douglass? By acknowledging both how much he accomplished in his efforts to overthrow white supremacy, and by re-dedicating ourselves to the work still to be done:
"Young people, all people, should know that empowerment first comes from within, and that it is important for us to narrate what is within ourselves and this society where Black people and other peoples still do not feel free. That is why Douglass’s Narrative remains important. That is why this One Million Abolitionists project is so vitally important."
Dr. Ibram X. Kendi, author of Stamped From the Beginning:
The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America,
winner of the 2016 National Book Award for Nonfiction
Frederick Douglass Family Initiatives (FDFI) introduces a project called, One Million Abolitionists. To honor Douglass’s 200th birthday, we will print one million hardcover copies of the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave and give them to young people all across the country. Then we’ll ask the readers of this special Bicentennial Edition to create service projects to address an urgent social justice issue present in their community. We would like to see one million young people working toward equality in the spirit of Frederick Douglass…
FDFI wants to inspire and empower one million young people to do and be more than they ever dreamed possible. Working with schools, our organization has tackled human trafficking and modern day slavery through service-learning curricula and prevention education initiatives since 2007. How important is education? Douglass learned early that knowledge was his pathway to freedom. That lesson holds true today; for children and adults alike.
I cannot hope to add anything to the words of someone who ranks among the greatest orators, intellectuals and freedom fighters the country, in fact the world, has ever produced:
You are aware, doubtless, that my object in going from this country, was to get beyond the reach of the clutch of the man who claimed to own me as his property. I had written a book, giving a history of that portion of my life spend in the gall and bitterness of Slavery, and in which, I also identified my oppressors as the perpetrators of some of the most atrocious crimes. This had deeply incensed them against me, and stirred up within them the purpose of revenge, and, my whereabouts being known, I believed it necessary for me, if I would preserve my liberty, to leave the shores of America, and take up my abode in some other land, at least until the clamor had subsided. I went to England, monarchical England, to get rid of Democratic Slavery; and I must confess that at the very threshold I was satisfied that I had gone to the right place. Say what you will of England — of the degradation — of the poverty — and there is much of it there, — say what you will of the oppression and suffering going on in England at this time, there is Liberty there, not only for the white man, but for the black man also…
I cannot agree with my friend Mr. Garrison, in relation to my love and attachment to this land. I have no love for America, as such; I have no patriotism. I have no country. What country have I? The institutions of this country do not know me, do not recognize me as a man. I am not though of, spoken of, in any direction, out of the anti-slavery ranks, as a man. I am not thought of, or spoken of, except as a piece of property belonging to some Christian slaveholder, and all the religious and political institutions of this country, alike pronounce me a slave and a chattel. Now, in such a country as this, I cannot have patriotism. The only thing that links me to this land is my family, and the painful consciousness that here and there are three millions of my fellow-creatures, groaning beneath the iron rod of the worst despotism that could be devised, even in Pandemonium; that here are men and brethren, who are identified with me by their complexion, identified with me by their hatred of Slavery, identified with me by their love and aspirations for liberty, identified with me by the stripes upon their backs, their inhuman wrongs and cruel sufferings. This, and this only, attaches me to this land, and brings me here to plead with you, and with this country at large, for the disenthralment of my oppressed countrymen, and to overthrow this system of Slavery which is crushing them to the earth. How can I love a country that dooms three millions of my brethren, some of them my own kindred, my own brothers, my own sisters, who are now clanking the chains of Slavery upon the plans of the South, whose warm blood is now making fat the soil of Maryland and of Alabama, and over whose crushed spirits rolls the darks shadow of oppression, shutting out and extinguishing forever, the cheering rays of that bright sun of Liberty lighted in the souls of all God’s children by the Omnipotent hand of Deity itself? How can I, I say, love a country thus cursed, thus bedewed with the blood o f my brethren? A country, the Church of which, and the Government of which, and the Constitution of which, is in favour of supporting and perpetuation this monstrous system of injustice and blood? I have not, I cannot have, any love for this country, as such, or for its Constitution. I desire to see its overthrow as speedily as possible, and its Constitution shriveled in a thousand fragments, rather than this foul curse should continue to remain as now…
Sir, I feel that it is good to be here. There is always work to be done. Slavery is everywhere. Slavery goes everywhere.