Yohuru Williams in History.com:
Frederick Douglass sits in the pantheon of Black history figures. Born into slavery, he made a daring escape North, wrote best-selling autobiographies and went on to become one of the nation’s most powerful voices against human bondage. He stands as the most influential civil and human rights advocate of the 19th century. Perhaps his greatest legacy? He never shied away from hard truths.
…Douglass’s voluminous writings and speeches reveal a man who believed fiercely in the ideals on which America was founded, but understood—with the scars to prove it—that democracy would never be a destination of comfort and repose, but a journey of ongoing self-criticism and struggle. He knew it when he lobbied relentlessly to abolish slavery. And he knew it after Emancipation, when he continued to battle for equal rights under the law. Indeed, Douglass knew, as he argued so ardently in his famed 1852 July Fourth speech, that for democracy to thrive, the nation’s conscience must be roused, its propriety startled and its hypocrisy exposed. Not once, but continually and for the good of the nation, he argued, we must bring the “thunder.”
More here. (Note: Throughout February, at least one post will be devoted to Black History Month: A century of Black History Commemorations)
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