Sunday Reflection: Frederick Douglass

 

As we celebrate Black History Month, we note the birthday anniversary today of one of America's great fighters for human rights and dignity: Frederick Douglass. Born into slavery circa 1818, Douglass became a renowned orator, writer, abolitionist, and diplomat. (Douglass later chose the February 14 to be his birthday since no precise birth records were kept for the vast majority of children born into slavery.) So many of Douglass' words are eternal and resonant:

"I prefer to be true to myself, even at the hazard of incurring the ridicule of others, rather than to be false, and to incur my own abhorrence."

"Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe."

(photo: colorized image from Biography.com)

Sunday Reflection: Chains

"No man can put a chain about the ankle of his fellow man without at last finding the other end fastened about his own neck." -- Frederick Douglass, 1818 - 1895.

As we observe the 400th anniversary of Africans forced into slavery in America, Douglass' words remind us that no one is truly free until we all are free. The legacy of America's "original sin" has yet to be expunged, as the forces of white supremacy and racism continue to secure the chain that Douglass wrote of around too many necks.