Be a Frederick Douglass in a world full of Andrew Jacksons.
Frederick Douglass was a writer, abolitionist, social reformer, publisher, and civil rights leader. He was born into slavery and remained enslaved until he escaped at twenty. He risked that freedom to help other enslaved people escape.
Despite an enslaved childhood full of oppression and rumors that his master was his father, Douglass learned how to read and write. When he was around twelve, he was sent to a new family, and the lady of the family wanted to tutor him. The master was against it, saying that literacy would encourage enslaved people to want freedom and Douglass thought, ‘I instinctively assented to the proposition, and from that moment I understood the direct pathway from slavery to freedom.’
After escaping , he eventually made his way through Delaware, Pennsylvania, and NYC before landing in Rochester. He lived in Rochester from 1847-1872 and worked with Harriett Tubman, Susan B. Anthony, and others fighting for the basic rights that were only granted to white men. It was in Rochester in 1852 in that he gave his famous speech ‘What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?’ If you haven’t read it, I encourage you to read it and think about how much is still very pertinent today, 173 years later.
That speech is now memorialized below a bronze statue of Frederick Douglass in Highland Park in Rochester.
He was a brilliant thinker, writer, and orator. He was so brilliant that Northerners couldn’t believe he had been enslaved, which prompted him to write his first autobiography. It’s incredible how many famous quotes come from a man who was enslaved, received no formal education, and was bold enough to speak his mind as an African-American man in the mid-1800’s. My favorite quote, which is painted in one of many murals at the Frederick Douglass home site (now a school and library), is “It is easier to build strong children than repair broken men.”
He moved to Washington, DC in 1872 but always said Rochester was his home, and that’s where he returned when he died. He was buried at Mount Hope Cemetery, not far from his friend Susan B. Anthony.
There is so much to learn about the fight against racism and oppression in Rochester. The Rochester Museum and Science Center currently has exhibits on the Underground Railroad, how objects and images perpetuate racism, and organizing against racism. Susan B. Anthony’s house is now a museum dedicated to her fight for equal rights. While I commend Rochester for the work they’ve done, including renaming the airport the Frederick Douglass Greater Rochester International Airport, there’s still a lot of work to be done. If you venture out of the city toward the suburban and rural areas, there’s a good chance you see a Confederate flag hanging on a porch or on the bumper of a truck. And that is exactly why it’s so important to support and bear witness to the Civil Rights fighters of the past.
Like Douglass said, I would unite with anybody to do right and with nobody to do wrong.