Once upon a time, there was a two or three stool diner in a small town in a southern state. A tall Black man owned the diner. He had been a cook in the Army in WWII. I remember visiting that small town when I was four or five. I only met this man once or twice because he lived in another State. I remember him asking me if I wanted a sausage sandwich which I now know was his specialty. I don’t remember if I said yes or anything else. All I remember is that he asked me. I think I remember that because when I met him again when I was older and he still had his diner, he said my name and he pronounced it in a way that I heard a lot on that trip. But, I knew he was saying my name. It was like I had heard it pronounced that way before. May he, the owner of a small business, rest in peace!
Talking to white people goes like this–Black people, Today the topic is apples; white people’s response, oranges are orange. Let’s walk away when that happens. One cannot educate or persuade stupid. Let them talk about oranges when the banner reads apples. Maybe we’ll learn and inculcate that they’re not that smart.
Have you read the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave by Frederick Douglass? I was looking for a book I read on Frederick Douglass years ago (must have been a biography) and this autobiography popped up in response to my query. The book is in the public domain and is available for download. It’s short, but not an easy read. https://www.ibiblio.org/ebooks/Douglass/Narrative/Douglass_Narrative.pdf
In this book, Frederick Douglass gives a first hand account of what it was like to be a Slave in Maryland in the early to mid 1800s. Books like this and the Slave Narratives (Federal Writers’ Project (1936-1938) should be required reading. This is the history that the current white supremacists want to erase. Wendell Phillips (Abolitionist and attorney), who wrote a foreword to Douglass’s autobiography, said that he would read the book with “trembling” and that he had, in the past stopped Douglass from talking about the details of Slavery as he preferred to remain ignorant of the details. https://www.loc.gov/collections/slave-narratives-from-the-federal-writers-project-1936-to-1938/about-this-collection/
Many, today, would like to hide their heads in the sand about the United States’ barbaric, bloodied past. We, see, today, in 2024, that if we allow that to happen, the past, in an unforeseen iteration will happen again.
I read Roots by Alex Haley, but it was somewhat sanitized when compared to Frederick Douglass’s first hand account of his lived experience. That’s why primary sources are so important. I am no fan of Frederick Douglass because of, my opinion, his lack of respect for his first wife. In the book I read, he said his first wife, who was Black, was not his intellectual equal because she did not read or write. (Hope this is correct. Memory sometimes skews facts!) He lamented her lack of intellectual curiosity.
Did it ever occur to him that she had five children (only two made it to adulthood) that she had to feed and clothe and nurse and nurture, that she maintained the household while he was traveling and orating, and because of the times, she did all this with no help from him? I do not believe they could afford hired help. When was there time or energy to read a book? This was the 1800s in cold, cold Massachusetts. She left her family and friends behind to marry him. Was she a status symbol because she was free? She had her papers. Did he ever think that his escaped status put her at risk?
I find his expectations totally unrealistic. In the book I read, he did have a daughter that he felt was his intellectual equal, but she died young. I think it’s called intellectual snobbery and apparently he reveled in that perceived status.
I am aware that I am judging him by modern day standards. But, just because this country’s laws treated women as property in the 1800s doesn’t make the laws right or just, then or now. Even then, some women were agitating for equal rights.
We know white people lie. That’s a given. The following is a quote from the white supremacist advisor to the former president who’s running again this year. “Trump needs to just make up anything to say to Black people. Lie to them. It doesn’t matter.” And some Blacks have drank the kool-aid and think he is better than the alternative. White supremacists do not see us as a group worthy of anything, not even crumbs. I’ve written about this before. He did nothing for us during his term and he will do less than nothing if he is elected to another term. His father was a racist and the apple is nestled next to the trunk of the tree. The only thing we could hope for is that he would be too busy seeking revenge for past slights, real and imagined, perpetrated by his group, i.e., whites, to bother with us. Thought…if he did so much for us why are we in 2024, in so far as wealth, worse off than we were in the 1950s? Pardoning some criminal rappers for a payment to one’s pocket does nothing for the Black community. But the former president does not believe that tax evasion is a crime. So his choice of those to pardon makes sense.
Excerpt from Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave:
I held my Sabbath school at the house of a free colored
man, whose name I deem it imprudent to mention; for should it
be known, it might embarrass him greatly, though the crime of
holding the school was committed ten years ago. I had at one
time over forty scholars, and those of the right sort, ardently
desiring to learn. They were of all ages, though mostly men and
women.
I look back to those Sundays with an amount of
pleasure not to be expressed. They were great days to my soul.
The work of instructing my dear fellow-slaves was the sweetest
engagement with which I was ever blessed. We loved each
other, and to leave them at the close of the Sabbath was a severe
cross indeed. When I think that these precious souls are to-day
shut up in the prison-house of slavery, my feelings overcome
me, and I am almost ready to ask, “Does a righteous God
govern the universe? and for what does he hold the thunders in
his right hand, if not to smite the oppressor, and deliver the
spoiled out of the hand of the spoiler?” These dear souls came
not to Sabbath school because it was popular to do so, nor did I
teach them because it was reputable to be thus engaged. Every
moment they spent in that school, they were liable to be taken
up, and given thirty-nine lashes. They came because they
wished to learn. Their minds had been starved by their cruel
masters. They had been shut up in mental darkness. I taught
them, because it was the delight of my soul to be doing
something that looked like bettering the condition of my race. I
kept up my school nearly the whole year I lived with Mr.
Freeland; and, beside my Sabbath school, I devoted three
evenings in the week, during the winter, to teaching the slaves
at home. And I have the happiness to know, that several of
those who came to Sabbath school learned how to read; and that
one, at least, is now free through my agency.
The year passed off smoothly. It seemed only about half as
long as the year which preceded it. I went through it without
receiving a single blow. I will give Mr. Freeland the credit of
being the best master I ever had, till I became my own master.
For the ease with which I passed the year, I was, however,
somewhat indebted to the society of my fellow-slaves. They
were noble souls; they not only possessed loving hearts, but
brave ones. We were linked and interlinked with each other. I
loved them with a love stronger than any thing I have
experienced since. It is sometimes said that we slaves do not
love and confide in each other. In answer to this assertion, I can
say, I never loved any or confided in any people more than my
fellow-slaves, and especially those with whom I lived at Mr.
Freeland’s. I believe we would have died for each other. We
never undertook to do any thing, of any importance, without a
mutual consultation. We never moved separately. We were one;
and as much so by our tempers and dispositions, as by the
mutual hardships to which we were necessarily subjected by our
condition as slaves.
How do we return to the love of self, our brothers and sisters, and learning that Douglass so eloquently expresses? That is the answer we should be seeking.
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