| "[Master Covey] then went to a large gum-tree, and with his axe cut three large switches, and, after trimming them up neatly with his pocket knife, he ordered me to take off my clothes. I made him no answer, but stood with my clothes on. He repeated his order. I still made him no answer, nor did I move to strip myself. Upon this he rushed at me with the fierceness of a tiger, tore off my clothes, and lashed me till he had worn out his switches..." — Frederick Douglass |
I have been meaning to get around to reading "The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass" for years. The abolitionist movement and the American Civil War have fascinated me since middle school. I think because it's our nation's most bloody and introspective conflict to this day. It was also the first photographed war. The invention of the camera coincided and was put to use by Matthew Brady. I learned though that Frederick Douglass—not Lincoln or Lee or Grant—was the most photographed American of the 19th century.
Douglass never smiled by design, aiming to blast the meme of the happy, content-in-his-bondage black man from public discourse. His life's story is a powerful and painful-to-read indictment that peels back the dishonestly romanticized Old South's way of life—a meme which continues to this day. Anecdotally, I think it's why growing up I saw so many more battlefield re-enactors in grey than the 'blue bellies' at Gettysburg park.
Apparently, there are many slave narratives (yes, that's what the genre is called) and I plan to read many more. FD's tale is unique historically, though, as I understand it, as well as psychologically. Here was a man born into slavery, whose desire for freedom was awakened by his vision of an alternative life. In large degree, this was triggered by learning to read in secret. It's troubling to us readers, but the desire for freedom in Douglass' view were not automatically shared by many others, especially those who have never known a different life. [JG]
Douglass never smiled by design, aiming to blast the meme of the happy, content-in-his-bondage black man from public discourse. His life's story is a powerful and painful-to-read indictment that peels back the dishonestly romanticized Old South's way of life—a meme which continues to this day. Anecdotally, I think it's why growing up I saw so many more battlefield re-enactors in grey than the 'blue bellies' at Gettysburg park.
Apparently, there are many slave narratives (yes, that's what the genre is called) and I plan to read many more. FD's tale is unique historically, though, as I understand it, as well as psychologically. Here was a man born into slavery, whose desire for freedom was awakened by his vision of an alternative life. In large degree, this was triggered by learning to read in secret. It's troubling to us readers, but the desire for freedom in Douglass' view were not automatically shared by many others, especially those who have never known a different life. [JG]
| "I now understood what had been to me a most perplexing difficulty—to wit, the white man's power to enslave the black man. [Reading] was a grand achievement, and I prized it highly. From that moment, I understood the pathway from slavery to freedom." |
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