Biographer David W. Blight on Frederick Douglass

On November 6th, in The New York Times, Yale Professor David W. Blight wrote an Op-Ed about Douglass and our current times.

Opinion

What America Owes Frederick Douglass

He said black people had three tools: their voice, their pen and their vote. Today all three are under threat.

By David W. Blight

Mr. Blight is a professor of history at Yale and the author, most recently, of “Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom.”

Blight writes about a fierce conversation that Douglass had at the White House with President Andrew Johnson in 1866


Blight concludes:

Douglass left a timeless maxim for republics in times of crisis: “Our government may at some time be in the hands of a bad man. When in the hands of a good man it is all well enough.” But “we ought to have our government so shaped that even when in the hands of a bad man we shall be safe.” Politics, he insisted, mattered as much as the air he breathed.

Douglass’s words echo on today. Are our institutions adequate to the challenges presented by a president animated by a combination of authoritarianism and ignorance? Is the right to vote really safe and free? Are our political parties disintegrating? Is our free press robust enough to withstand the attacks upon it and the technology revolutionizing the dissemination of information?

At this moment in our history we too are tested by the same question Douglass posed about bad men and government. And the only weapons most of us have in this historical moment are those Douglass named: our voice, our pen and our vote.

See - David W. Blight's book: Frederick Douglass; Prophet of Freedom