Classic by a Person
of Color. In 1852 famed abolitionist Frederick Douglass delivered the
searing speech "What
to the Slave is the Fourth of July?" 168 years later in Rochester, NY, where Douglass lived
from 1847 to 1872 and where he’s buried, iconoclasts toppled a statue of Douglass from its base and left
it near the Genesee River gorge.
The Heroic Slave – Frederick Douglass
This 1853 novella was the writer’s only fictional work. It
is based on the true story of Madison Washington. He was, in 1841, the leader
of a group of 134 enslaved men, women, and children that commandeered a slave
ship bound for New Orleans and took it to Nassau where they could be free.
The novella has four sections. In the first, a white
Ohioan, Mr. Listwell, overhears Madison lamenting his burden. Listwell sees the
sin of his previous indifference to the system of chattel slavery and is
converted to abolitionism. In section two, in an amazing coincidence that we
expect in 19th century fiction, it is five years later and Madison,
who has escaped the south, finds himself at the house of Mr. Listwell. Listwell
gets him to Cleveland where Madison takes a boat across to Canada and freedom.
In section three Listwell is on the road again in
Virginia. In another amazing coincidence, he finds Madison enslaved again.
Madison said his body could be free but not his spirit as long as his wife and
two children remained property. When he returned to help her escape, he was
captured. Part three ends with Listwell smuggling three stout files to Madison.
In part four, Madison leads the fight that ends up with
the enslaved people finally free in British-held Nassau. The narrative is told from
the point of view of Grant, a racist white hireling, deeply implicated in the abomination
of slavery by being a member of the class of guards, jailers, overseers, slave
breakers, and slave hunters that supported the system.
Grant says, “I forgot his blackness in the dignity of his
manner, and the eloquence of his speech.” Madison’s bravery and lack of
hesitation to use violence for his freedom reminds Grant the slaver of the
spirit of 1776.
So Douglass' message seems to be that through their own efforts – intelligence, planning, cooperation, bravery, armed action – black people can rise up and gain their freedom. There’s
hope for white people too.They will be persuaded by action. Even the old slaver Grant reconsiders his vicious prejudice – somewhat
- when he himself witnesses black intelligence, tactics, determination, and violence for the cause of freedom.
Other books by Douglass:
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