Douglass, therefore, lived with an acute problem of “fame,” in all its positive and negative aspects. Living in Washington, his family emerged as a kind of black first family in the District of Columbia press. Along with his two wives over time, these kinfolk all became to one degree or another financially dependent on Douglass. But above all Douglass also became in the final thirty years of his life, 1865-1895, a patriarch of a huge extended family of three sons, one daughter, and twenty-one grandchildren. Douglass always had to live up to expectations of performing as the black leader, the voice of the freedpeople, the former slave who had to prove the capacities of black people. In his case this meant becoming a loyal advocate of the Republican Party for thirty years as it decisively changed from the party of emancipation and the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the party of big business and the retreat from the egalitarian transformations of Reconstruction.ĭouglass became an office holder (by appointment, not election), he became often a symbol as much as an actual political leader. Douglass is the greatest example of this phenomenon in the 19th century. Some of America’s major Civil Rights leaders who later became major office holders also are good examples. Vaclav Havel and many other Eastern European leaders after the fall of the Soviet Union and the Berlin Wall also come to mind. Can you discuss the tension the aging Douglass experienced as he made the transition from radical outsider to political insider and symbolic figure of great fame?įew radical reformers in history live to see their causes triumph, and then also live long enough to become a political insider within the government or a system they had fought to overthrow, destroy, and reinvent.
This conversation is courtesy of Simon & Schuster, the book’s publisher. His book, Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom, is available now at Queens Public Library.
Blight, author of a new biography of Douglass and winner of the Pulitzer Prize, will visit Flushing Library on Saturday, November 16 at 2pm.
Frederick Douglass was one of the greatest abolitionists, known for his powerful oratory.
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