It never fails that at least one of my student’s response to Frederick Douglass’ infamous speech What to the Slave is the Fourth of July with a question of “How in the world did Douglass escape the building after those harsh words?”  

The referenced speech delivered on July 5, 1852, in Rochester, New York, at Corinthian Hall during an address to the Rochester Ladies’ Anti-Slavery Society is the Abolitionist leader’s most remembered moment for a host of reasons. Just consider for a moment that the Rochester Ladies’ Anti-Slavery Society invited Douglass, an enslaved person, we must never forget that the nation’s leading Abolitionist was never freed by a vengeful owner who informed all callers that they didn’t have the kind of money needed to free Douglass, to offer comments regarding the Founding Fathers decision to no longer be “slaves to Britain.” What follows is an excerpt from Douglass’s message.

What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciations of tyrants, brass fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade, and solemnity, are, to him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy—a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages.

There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices, more shocking and bloody, than are the people of these United States, at this very hour. Go where you may, search where you will, roam through all the monarchies and despotisms of the old world, travel through South America, search out every abuse, and when you have found the last, lay your facts by the side of the everyday practices of this nation, and you will say with me, that, for revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival . . .

I do not know of a single living Black leader who would stand in front of an audience full of whites and deliver such a daunting speech. There is no room to debate against the assertion that Black America certainly needs more American leaders like Frederick Douglass.

It is the respect that Douglass is due that makes recent reports that a statue honoring him in Rochester, New York, was ripped from its location at Maplewood Park; a former station on the Underground Railroad. The damaged statue was found approximately 50 feet away at the edge of the Genesee River.

As a writer and historian, my soul cringes when I learn that a morsel of Black America’s contributions to this nation has been erased by racial bigots or institutionalized racism. Nonetheless, the damaging of Douglass’ statue speaks volumes regarding the unknown perpetrators’ historical illiteracy and worldview. Make no mistake about it, historical illiteracy is the gateway for foolish thoughts resting on a vast sea of nothingness.  

As you well know, the present moment is contextualized by raging culture wars that have led many whites to feel that their cultural heritage and ancestry are being assailed in some manner. Making this inexplicable situation more volatile are the daily dispatches from “45” that stoke the flames of racial animosity. It is the illogical nature of many of our countrymen that best explains the attack on Douglass’ statue in of all places Rochester, New York, a city that used to be as distant from the Confederacy as one could imagine.

However, the rising of racial bigotry in what used to be a haven for freedom loving Americans is a notable marker regarding the anger, frustration, disappointment, and fear rumbling in the hearts of a significant segment of White America.

Contemporary opponents of societal progress remind me of predecessors who also resisted the rising tide of change during the identity politic driven 1960s. While women pursued equal footing in American society, an old-guard conservative element pushed back. When Black citizens pursued the exercise of the theoretical equality found in the 1964 Civil Rights and 1965 Voting Rights Acts, many whites longed for a time when “Negras” knew their place. When the LGBTQ community rose in an unprecedented manner, the alluded to populace fought against their desperate pleas for recognition. When Brown activists rallied under a banner of “Chicano power” frightened whites behaved as if it were the end of American civilization.

The descendants of such backwards thinking people can still be found at political events issuing tone-deaf pleas to Make America Great Again. Such is the lament of a sad group who fear that the inclusion of others jeopardizes their privileged status and politico-economic monopolies. Unfortunately for this aging aggrieved populace, the political whirlwind is encouraging an irrestible Black Panther like “All Power to the People” moment; it would not be a stretch to consider this shift in the same vein as a rising tide constructed by Mother Nature. Try as they might, those opposing change will lose, it is impossible to retard, let alone reverse, this rising tide of change.

In many ways, it is ironic that the damaging of a statue constructed to honor Frederick Douglass validates the very thoughts that he spoke nearly two centuries ago. If he were alive, I am sure that Douglass would direct his commentary at a particular segment of White America and tell them that when it comes to “revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, y’all reign without a rival.” Fortunately for the soul of this nation, in the words of Sam Cooke, a change is gonna come and it is occurring much sooner than many of us ever expected.

Dr. James Thomas Jones III

© Manhood, Race, and Culture, 2020.