“I have shown that slavery is wicked-wicked, in that it violates the great law of liberty, written on every human heart-wicked, in that it violates the first command of the Decalogue-wicked, in that it fosters the most disgusting licentiousness-wicked, in that it mars and defaces the image of God by cruel and barbarous inflictions-wicked, in that it contravenes the laws of eternal justice, and tramples in the dust all the humane and heavenly precepts of the New Testament.”. That great battle was won not because the victim of slavery was a negro, mulatto, or an Afro-American, but because the victim of slavery was a man and a brother to all other men, a child of God, and could claim with all mankind a common Father, and therefore should be recognized as an accountable being, a subject of government, and entitled to justice, liberty and equality before the law and everywhere else.” “It was not the race or the color of the Negro that won for him the battle of liberty.I could see no reason why I should, at the end of each week, pour the reward of my honest toil into the purse of any man.” I could be robbed by indirection, but this was too open and barefaced to be endured. “The practice, from week to week, of openly robbing me of all my earnings, kept the nature and character of slavery constantly before me.Let us remember Douglass in his own words, for they rank among the most memorable and persuasive in our past. Among those in America who helped accomplish that noble objective, Frederick Douglass used words as weapons to amazing and lasting effect. A hundred years later, it was mostly gone and everywhere condemned. For centuries before 1800, slavery was common in the world and widely accepted. It should come as no surprise to learn that Frederick Douglass played a pivotal role in the transformation of the American conscience. In a 2018 article commemorating the 200th anniversary of his birth titled “ The Stirring Eloquence of Frederick Douglass,” I wrote: That’s good, but students should also become acquainted with the many black entrepreneurs, authors, sports achievers, medical professionals, musicians, and statesmen in American history, too.Ī leading candidate for the greatest black American ever would surely be the former slave and abolitionist orator Frederick Douglass. Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks, James Meredith, and numerous others. Nearly any of the social reformer’s insights may be applied on a far grander scale as you ask yourself what it actually means to be free, and how the actions of your government can subject you to slavery – with your total complacency.During Black History Month (February), students learn about civil rights activists of recent decades-Dr. What I wish to point out is this: The writings of Frederick Douglass, one of our country’s most brilliant abolitionists, are not to be looked at solely through the lens of American history. To do so would be to make too little of the plight of slaves past and present. None of this is to assert that Americans or most people in other countries are slaves. If it extorts money from them in the name of taxation, drafts them to fight in foreign wars for profit, and imprisons them for viciously long amounts of time for minor, nonviolent infractions, at what point does the government’s actions become indistinguishable from the crack of a planter’s whip? By that definition, could the entire population of North Korea be considered enslaved? Quite arguably, yes, and given that one must wonder at what point a government becomes its citizens’ master. But whether or not the unfettered can also be deemed slaves depends on your worldview.Ī slave is legal property who is forced into obedience. When you see your fellow man clad in chains, forced to work, and quite literally owned, it is easy to call them a slave. And thanks to human trafficking, tens of thousands of people living in America are enslaved right now. India leads the world, so to speak, with over 18 million slaves, the vast majority of whom belong to the Dalit caste. It is estimated that one in ten North Koreans are currently enslaved by their dictatorship. This is why Frederick Douglas quotes will always remain relevant. In the United States we are most familiar with the enslavement of the African American – as we rightly should be – although the sin has been committed against men and women of all races across the world and throughout history. Slavery, regardless of whom is enslaved, is evil in one of its purest forms. Knowledge makes a man unfit to be a slave.
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