![]() In such addresses, Douglass called on African Americans to practice self-improvement, both as individuals and as part of a larger community, in the difficult post-emancipation years. Certainly, Douglass made a number of speeches that-presented out of context-have proven useful to contemporary conservatives. The GOP likes to point out-correctly-that Douglass was a committed Republican from the founding of the Republican Party in the 1850s until his death in 1895. Throughout the text, Blight decries these conservatives’ efforts to adopt Douglass as one of their own. Douglass was, Blight contends, among other things, a man who “fought against mob violence, but believed in certain kinds of revolutionary violence.” In a theme that he returns to repeatedly, Blight continues, “In his own career heroically tried to forge a livelihood with his voice and pen, but fundamentally was not a self-made man, an image and symbol he touted in a famous speech, and through which modern conservatives have adopted him as a proponent of individualism” (xv). This fact, along with the former slave’s storied career as an abolitionist and civil rights icon “make his story so attractive to biographers, as well as to so many constituencies today” (xv). Like many biographers of famous, consequential figures, Blight argues that Douglass possessed paradoxical qualities. As a result, the historian has produced the most comprehensive and insightful study of Douglass’s life yet published. In his latest and most thorough analysis of the “Lion of Anacostia”- Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom- Blight pulls off the difficult trick of capturing both Douglass’s outsized greatness and deep humanity. Blight has also contributed to recent editions of two of Douglass’s autobiographies and, in 1989, published his first book, Frederick Douglass’ Civil War: Keeping Faith in Jubilee (Louisiana State University Press). Blight has published works on a variety of topics relating to the history of slavery and the antebellum era, most notably, his 2001 work Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory (Harvard University Press), which details the nation’s abandonment of the war’s emancipationist legacy in the half-century after its conclusion in favor of reconciliation on the basis of a shared investment in white supremacy. Blight, chronicling the life of someone of Frederick Douglass’s magnitude is an immense undertaking. Lee surrendered at Appomattox, Americans are still fighting over the great issues at the heart of the conflict.Even for an esteemed scholar like Yale history professor David W. The preacher who tried to heal the wounds of Charleston fell victim to neo-Confederate ideology in the city where the Civil War began.ġ50 years after Robert E. Throughout modern history, the millions forced to flee as refugees and beg for asylum have felt Douglass’s agony, and thought his thoughts.Ī century and a half after the Civil War, the process of Reconstruction remains contested-and incomplete.Ĭlementa Pinckney, a Martyr of Reconciliation ![]() The Battle for Memorial Day in New OrleansĪ century and a half after the Civil War, Mayor Mitch Landrieu asked his city to reexamine its past-and to wrestle with hard truths. In the immediate aftermath of the Civil War, he dreamed of a pluralist utopia. Levinįrederick Douglass’s Vision for a Reborn America The University of North Carolina agreed to pay the Sons of Confederate Veterans $2.5 million-a sum that rivals the endowment of its history department. The pandemic is reminding Americans of the importance of government.Ī University’s Betrayal of Historical Truth The United States Is Being Taught by Facts and Events Like Frederick Douglass, we can find inspiration for this moment in the oldest story of rebirth and renewal. Lessons from Frederick Douglass on the tortured relationship between protest and change ![]() ![]() Here’s what parents need to understand about the teaching of history. He is the author, most recently, of Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom. Blight is a professor of American history and the director of the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition at Yale University. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |