On Frederick Douglass: The freedom of some or the freedom of all?
Published Mar 1, 2008 12:31 AM
As the presidential campaign of Senators Hillary Rodham-Clinton (D-N.Y.)
and Barack Obama (D-Ill.) continue in their breakneck race to acquire the most
delegates (and thus the nomination), various segments of the population have
endeavored to pose the question of whether gender should trump race in this
rare historical moment.
Some have suggested that Sen. Clinton, as a woman, deserves the nomination
given the nation’s delay in granting women’s suffrage until 1920
while Black men could vote since the ratification of the 15th Amendment to the
Constitution, in 1870.
Of course, this is a cribbed reading of American history, for passage of a
constitutional amendment was one thing, the actual implementation of such a
right would be almost a century later for half the country.
It took long and tortuous struggle for the alleged constitutional right to vote
to be made real. For, if the constitution were sufficient, why would a Voting
Rights Act (passed in 1965) have been necessary?
One great Black leader, Frederick Douglass, was an outspoken defender of
women’s rights, and never stopped being so during his long public career,
both before and after the Civil War.
Indeed, the love of freedom being so close to his heart, when he escaped to
England to raise the money to legally purchase his freedom, he used his time
there to criticize the conditions of white, poor working classes in England,
Scotland and Ireland. He would write in The Liberator: “Though I am more
closely connected and identified with one class of outraged, oppressed and
enslaved people, I cannot allow myself to be insensible to the wrongs and
suffering of any part of the great family of man. I am not only an American
slave, but a man, and as such, am bound to use my powers for the welfare of the
whole human brotherhood. ... I believe that the sooner the wrongs of the whole
human family are made known, the sooner those wrongs will be
reached.”
When the princely sum of $750 was raised by British friends and supporters,
Douglass bought his own freedom, and indeed, had the bill of sale to his own
self, placed in his hands.
When he returned to the U.S., he wrote in his own paper, The North Star, and
announced from public women’s conventions, that “Right is of no
sex.”
When women’s rights activist Elizabeth Cady Stanton introduced the
resolution for women’s suffrage in 1848, Douglass was the only man, Black
or white, to step forward and support her motion, and argued that political
equality was necessary for the complete liberation of women.
In The North Star of a week after the convention, Douglass reiterated his
support, writing: “Standing as we do upon the watch tower of human
freedom, we can not be deterred from an expression of our approbation of any
movement, however humble to improve and elevate the character of any members of
the human family. ... We are free to say that in respect to political rights,
we hold woman to be justly entitled to all we claim for man. ... Our doctrine
is that ‘right is of no sex!’ We therefore bid the women engaged in
this movement our humble Godspeed.”
There are few Black leaders, whether they call themselves radicals, liberals or
even conservatives, who do not turn for inspiration to the words and wisdom of
Frederick Douglass.
As an activist, as an agitator, as a premier journalist, as a powerful
spokesman, he had few true peers.
Without a doubt, he was a leader, and not a follower.
That he informs our steps now, over a century after his passing, is a testament
to the clarity of his vision, and the power of his spirit.
He didn’t serve the interests of power, he critiqued it, he assailed it,
he used his gifts to push it closer, ever closer, to a more human
expression.
We all live in a world that still bears his imprint.
[Source: Douglass, Frederick, On Slavery and the Civil War: Selections From His
Writings. (Mineola, N.Y.: Dover Publ., 2003), pp. 5-6, 13.]
Articles copyright 1995-2012 Workers World.
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