Book Talk: David W. Blight & Ta-Nehisi Coates discuss Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom

so I just want to lead with that I'm keeping  time right I don't want you think like I'm   texting my phone checking Instagram obviously not  checking Twitter but I have to tell you it's such   an honor to be here you know I was a history  major at Howard University I loved history   all my life would have been a household where  you know history was important dropped out of   Howard University and never you know graduated  with the history degree but when I came to the   Atlantic I suddenly had the opportunity due to  the way that job was designed when effectively   I was as far as I'm concerned basically being  paid to read and occasionally write that's all   we do here yes I know it's a beautiful thing  you know what I mean and it was like a period   like that was very similar to what I'd had when  I was in college and you know at the time when   I wanted to you know become a professor's what  I thought about and I couldn't believe it and   around that time I developed this uh I guess we  were getting close to the i'ma try to say this   right sesquicentennial did I say it right bingo  all right there we go we're getting close to the   sesquicentennial 150th anniversary so one said it  was you know Civil War in the airs about 2008 or   so and I'm guessing many people don't know this I  love video games but being the the true true nerd   I am NOT just you know nerd in terms of comics and  video games but nerd in terms of history too I'm   always looking for like lectures I can play while  I'm gaming you know so I would be so I would back   then I wouldn't play World of Warcraft and then  you maybe some history professor you know going   on or you know whatever and at the time probably  you know the history professors who I listen to   most was actually David blight who I didn't  know at that's what is the survey class you   teach here civil war and reconstruction Civil  War reconstruction and so they had all of the   lectures online not only that I believe he had  transcripts of the lectures absolutely incredible   it was like gold for me so I would go log or play  World of Warcraft and then David would talk well   he not how I always wanted to have a job as the  soundtrack for something I always wanted to be a   you know an announcer on his er or something but I  never got to do this and my wife who was supposed   to be I'm so sad she's not because she would watch  what are you listening to you know she would talk   about she would come in and it would just be blah  blah blah Wilmot Proviso you know what I mean it   was David you know but I have to tell you it's  not like I actually was listening I wasn't just   playing and so I think and I cannot tell you how  radicalizing that class was I've effectively took   that class in the best possible way that had to  write anything or I wrote what I decided that I   did write I wrote quite a bit actually I wrote  quite a bit I have the great luxury and a great   opportunity of having we were eight years in power  here for sale no pressure I would argue one two   three at least three or two pieces in there and  I'm talking about the piece I wrote about the   Civil War piece I wrote about reparations and  I would even argue the piece I wrote about mass   and conservation directly influenced about what I  took from David blind and just you know David and   then I'm actually actually question that died  I'm good you know I'm enjoying this okay David   would read these beautiful you know first-person  documents you know it was from David that I first   heard that letter the ironic one where the guy is  you know his slave master wants him to return yeah   and he writes what is that guy's name Anderson  yes yes yes Jordan and Jordan Anderson is joining   does the first time I heard and so it was like a  revelation so to be african-american as I am to   consider yourself a learning african-american  as I did before this to have come up in what   I you know call it a conscious household and  then to be in your 30s and to have this period   of incredible enlightenment was so tremendous to  me and it altered my path as a journalist and as   a writer it's the whole reason I'm sitting here  now in terms of you know what I wrote after that   but it's also the whole reason I'm sitting again  now because I'm here to honor David blight who is   our tremendous you guys have all quite the jewel  here as you can tell I have quite a list of hard   questions I'll be the tough interview David I just  want to start with the basics you know it's always   interesting to me when you take somebody like  like a douglas who is relatively prominent and   not only autobiographies of him but is actually  written about himself so his you know written   his own autobiographies three of them when and  how does one make the decision that there needs   to be a new biography mm-hmm Wow I didn't make  that decision in that way I didn't know if there   needed to be one or not but first of all thanks  for doing this and by the way the way we met or   finally started communicating and then met was  the friends started emailing me and saying you   reading the Atlantic no I haven't been very much  cuz it's this guy named Tony Zucco's he's writing   about you you better check it out he was all  over Racing reunion and just going to town on   it but anyway no better good way yeah good night  it was I was amazed my god this guy had read the   book and you really knew it I understood it  you know you're always you're always honored   when somebody actually reads anyway I I didn't  decide there needed to be a new biography I did   this because some of you know this already because  of the chance encounter with a private collection   new collection never seen before collection of  Douglas manuscript material owned by a wonderful   man in Savannah Georgia named Walter Evans chance  encounter because I'm with her in 2006 to give a   lecture to school teachers on Douglass which I've  done many times and my host said there was this   collector who wanted to meet he took me over his  house I first saw his collection I didn't decide   right away to do it but it's a collection without  going into the long story that is especially about   the last third of Douglass's life the older  Douglas the extended family that Douglas was   the patriarch of his life in politics his life  in Washington DC the core of it is are about 10   massive family scrapbooks that were kept by his  sons plus a lot of family letters so it was an   illumination of the older Douglas like we never  could have done before and I didn't decide right   away my first reaction was oh god I don't want to  do this I don't you know full life of Douglas is   a complicated why didn't you that's a daunting  life it's a daunted was just a you know narrow   it's a dissertation narrow look at Douglas in the  Civil War this means the whole life this means the   public and the private this means everything  you know cradle to death and was it the fact   of having to disappear into something like that  for a period of time yeah did I want to spend   probably at that time it probably felt like the  rest of my life on it then perhaps it has been let's hope not but there's also a lot of very  complicated stuff about Douglass's life not just   as public image and I thought no I don't want  to do this I don't want to do this I'm gonna   have to do this because is there somebody else if  I don't somebody else will and so forth and so on   so it really was that encounter with new sources  that it wasn't that I decided don't McFeely's   biography in 1991 isn't good enough bill wrote a  beautiful biography there'd been a whole number   of other books on aspects of Douglass's life  comparative books on Douglass and Lincoln lots   of work now by political philosophers on Douglas  lots of work by legal historians on Douglas and   still always subsided a lot of work on Douglas  by literary scholars but why not I thought you   know and I had no intention of even getting  the book out in the Bison tenant of Douglas   his birth this year the book was supposed to be  done three years ago so I got lucky with that   so it wasn't that kind of a choice it was new  sources and likely new things to say and to be   to be honest the older Douglas became for me the  most fascinating part of all why probably because   I'm getting older but but because after the  Civil War you've got a man with for one thing he   is the prototype prototypical example of the old  radical outsider you know the abolitionists always   beating on the doors who becomes a political  Insider becomes a government bureaucrat he gets   three major government appointments from three  different presidents he becomes a functionary   in the Republican Party he becomes much more of  a pragmatist and the compromises and deals that   go along with it but even more important he's  the patriarch of a massive extended family for   surviving adult children 21 grandchildren about 3  fictive siblings that opted him or he adopted them   almost all of whom become financially dependent  upon him and it's a very conflicted family a   loving family but a conflicted family so that that  aging Douglas becomes a very modern story and so   do his children in so many ways Annie becomes that  that aging great man if you want honest pedestal   and the next generation wants to knock him off and  they're all those rivalries that that he has with   the next generation of black leaders and I find  that story very modern and very interesting it's   what generations do to each other especially when  the next generation are college-educated Freeborn   and here's this you know race man the spokesman  of black America whose slave born has absolutely   not one day in his life in the school room and  now he's gonna get into conflicts with guys   who went to Oberlin and Harvard and who are law  professors who look at Douglass and say why are   you great man why aren't we and I found that he  threw the mud back at them more than they threw   it at him which makes him human really human and  yet I want to go back a little bit but before we   show that since we're here you know just talking  about those give me away from the old man no no   no I'm gonna stay here for just one second because  actually one of the more fascinating relationships   to me is with as we talked about there another  figure that's having a revival right now I to   be wells yeah and even though she is I would say  slightly more radical than him they forge a very   you know mental and minty father-daughter sort of  sort of relationship well why do you think and uh   you know she's had elbows I mean other people  who later on you know she ended up fighting   with what do you think was that work there well  it's almost grandfather granddaughter yes she's   very young when she launches her anti-lynching  campaign there's some mythology about it but she   did draw him to the lynching issue I mean there's  there stories out there without Ida wells Douglass   wouldn't have been interested in lynching not  quite the case he was interested but she drew him   to a certain passion with the book southern Horace  was southern [ __ ] indeed and then personal even   before their collaboration at the Chicago World's  Fair in 1893 when she decides to go to England he   wrote letters of introduction for her he connected  her around England now her tour of England didn't   turn out to be so great she had a very difficult  time in England by herself a young black woman   touring England in the 1880s 1890's trying to  you know proselytize the landscape against this   horrid issue of lynching in the United States  was not easy for her and he developed a certain   compassion for her for her passion for her ability  to go out and do what he'd done but she's doing it   as a young woman I mean he'd gone to England  80 45 or 47 and he gets lionized you know he   became this her Roy traveling order and they  thought he was almost a God in Scotland they   wrote songs and poems about him she was having  a very different experience with this and he   had great compassion for that and when she came  back she became a frequent visitor at Cedar Hill   his house in Washington she closely befriended  Helen Pitts Douglas the second wife they became   quite close but then they tangled to over what  to do about the Chicago World's Fair and what to   do about the fact the World's Fair was gonna have  Negro Day and I thought that was a terrible idea   as it turned out to be it was a terrible idea and  Douglass thought well I gotta go speak if I don't   then we're not represented and actually he gave a  barnburner of a speech that day and she admitted   it so they had a real testing relationship too  but she's an example of a young black activist   or artist that he did mentor I mean he had these  rivalries yeah these conflicts without question   but a Paul Laurence Dunbar for example and there  are others he takes under his wing Dunbar actually   came to Washington lived at Cedar Hill for a while  he was a poet with no money and he in douglass met   him in Chicago at the World's Fair says come on  in James Weldon Johnson James Weldon Johnson boy   sees him speak yeah whoa God who he goes down  to Tuskegee he goes to the skiing speaks at a   commencement at Booker T Washington's in college  god that's great correspondence - yeah Booker T's   writing to his friends about how angry he is those  Douglass is a little difficult he's hard he's hard   to get booked and he he wants money oh it's how  he makes a living now but then he he complains   that he wants to bring an assistant with him and  he wants this and he wants that he's complaining   in all these letters but Booker T Washington  went to tremendous extents to give Douglass to   Tuskegee for a commencement address and of course  what does he do he gives the self-made man speech   at the mecca of the self-made man mm-hmm and  we have a photograph of that Douglass actually   speaking at commencement at Tuskegee it's in  the book they didn't have a close relationship   but they had a correspondence relationship that's  fascinating Dubois and Douglass never really met   but Dubois did see Douglass speak and I think  I've proved it in the book you nailed it well   I hope so and my research assistant Griffin black  here a student at Yale is partly responsible for   that I said Griffin Dubois in his eulogy says the  last time I saw or know the first and only time I   saw Douglass I thought okay where can that be it  can't be at the Chicago World's Fair as Herbert   Aptheker once said because Dubois was in Berlin  during Chicago World's Fair but he's still in   Cambridge or Boston one Douglass spoke at Faneuil  Hall in 1892 and I said Griffin go look at all   the Boston newspapers let's make sure of the date  let's just make sure of this and he found it and   so the boys is in the audience he sees Douglass  give a version of the lessons of the hour speech and soda voices not making that up and eulogy  there are people have said the boys may have   imagined that he saw Douglas but I think he did  and then he and right after that he left to go to   Germany can we can we go back to the younger  Douglas that I think like one of the great   challenges I imagine and I don't know if this  was actually true but you take like a David Larry   levering Lewis since we're talking about the voice  win you know he's you know doing a biography about   the boys you're not in the period of slavery  and so you you have this whole period wait it   feels like the major source material it's Douglas  himself right right how did you deal with that as   a historian music I know you know you tend not as  a historian have this skeptical eye to how people   want to construct themselves Douglass was always  conscious at at especially doing well all three   but definitely doing that the first narrative  right you know that's as much of a beautiful piece   of writing is also propaganda oh there's reasons  to always both right so I wonder how you done   with that well sometimes probably not very well  but the first problem any biographer of Douglass   faces and this is true of anyone who writes a lot  of autobiography is that the subject is always in   your way he's just sitting right there in front of  you imposing 1,200 pages of autobiography on you   and daring you to try to figure him out and you're  trying to see under it and over it and round it   through it and in Douglas this case as most 19th  century memoir writing it's not about his private   life it's not about his personal standing it's not  about his family Anna Douglas his wife of 44 years   gets one mention and the third autobiography  and she's called my wife yeah like ouch the children get very little mention I mean just  to put this in context though like Ulysses as   a parent like Julia does not really come up  in the memoir he says something like alright   I found myself fond with his woman and then  suddenly they're married it did yeah yeah and   you didn't even tell you that he wrote hundreds of  letters right Julia which is what his biography is   based on yeah well grants writing a very military  biography Douglas was writing the self-made hero   story there's gonna be one major character and his  autobiographies it's gonna be me and whoever else   exalts that now I will say this because were  you where you were going with that question I   think is very important to understand Doug was  the slave life the 20 years he's a slave about   11 on the Eastern Shore of Maryland about 9:00 in  Baltimore you have to rely on the autobiographies   that's not all you rely on there are real good  sources on the Eastern Shore about this too and   some other people found them before I did but you  have to rely on his own probing of his memory of   a childhood so that the autobiography has become  both your source but also your subject you have   to be explaining why does this man continue to  write his own story over and over and over and   over why does he believe he has to keep writing  himself into history over and over and over and   over what is it about his story that he believes  the world wants to know we don't just believe it   he knows they do because the first the narrative  sold 30,000 copies in the first five years bondage   and freedom in 1855 which is long-form masterpiece  sold 18,000 copies in the first year my god that's   good even today that's good so but what I found  myself doing in the early chapters struggling with   this how much can you rely on this is I actually  checked a whole bunch of books out of Sterling   library about child psychology I don't to this day  I have a clue exactly how it helped me but uh but   I was trying to understand how do we remember  childhood what what's the best you know what's   the best science if you know on how we actually  remember child well on not surprisingly it has   a lot to do with trauma deep associations events  that have deep impact and it's and this is a man   who's grown up a slave plus I have to say you may  know the book called young Frederick Douglass by   Dixon Preston this is a book published way back in  1980 it's a Bible there anyway I used to carry it   everywhere my copy is all just soiled and messed  up but dick Preston was a journalist all of his   life until he retired and moved to the Eastern  Shore in the late 70s where he became drinking   buddies with James Michener who was writing his  book called Chesapeake and at lunch one day over   drinks mentioned her told Preston it's the way I  was told the story Michener tells Preston there's   this guy Frederick Douglass here from the Eastern  Shore Preston had never heard of him said really   slave Willy Wow and it was dick Preston who  started digging deep into the Eastern Shore   archives the Talbot County archives the Talbot  County Historical Society other kinds of records   it's dick Preston who actually discovered Douglass  his birth date which Douglass never knew at least   the monthly was born in and he was also able to  verify names places episodes dates when Douglass   names all these overseers with names like severe  and gore and you start thinking you're reading a   Toni Morrison novel because of the naming it's  not these these were the real people and all   kinds of episodes that can be largely verified  which helps you then get a little confidence   about believing the basics you know the bones  of that and Ed Rico via the famous fight he has   makhovikova was real and Covey's farm stow the  land is still there there there there's a lot of   records about Co V or Covey so I had to try to  use Douglass at the same time trying to explain   why he feels so compelled to be so detailed about  his youth I mean you're introduced in that first   little narrative to several savage beatings of  slaves you're introduced to a whole range of   overseers with different attitudes and different  personalities you're introduced to different kinds   of slaveholders you're also introduced to a child  coming of age and I'm still convinced that one of   the reasons Douglass's narrative is now taught  all over the world and certainly taught all over   the United States is because it is at its core  a coming-of-age story but it's a coming of age   out of slavery you know this this deepest of  American problems slavery to freedom and he's   trying to build in that book a story of a child's  consciousness of being a slave and then of course   he's trying to build the story of how he was gonna  overcome it he had some good lucky breaks and   overcoming that as well as an amazed and amazingly  brave and courageous will let's talk a little bit   about what it meant to be an abolitionist an  antebellum period because I think one of the   things I think you do a really really good job  of in the book is showing how many times I mean   oh my god how many times is Frederick Douglass  assaulted I mean it's just it's like constant come   it's constant you know and I think we think of him  obviously as an orator but you have to think about   somebody who's like getting off the train and  might confront a mob at the train station you   know might be a mob in front of the church where  he's you know supposed to speak whatever the venue   is my people might start throwing things at but  one time in the book in New York there's some you   know Irish thugs who sit down to deal with them  and for some reason to go to the stage right right   right right related to this in st. Louis tries to  debate it yeah yeah and the guy later compliments   Douglas and as men you're quite a debate is quite  me it's really it's guy's name was Isaiah rynders   he was an Irish street thug politician and I mean  that basically what he did he had a we're familiar   with thug politicians these days you'll get a  trump joke in there I mean come on the subjects   no matter what everywhere you go Simon yeah  your tie I mean this is tremendous courage I   mean this is not just stage fright no no no you  know so will you talk about and I want to throw   something else in there too and this is I mean  damn women I mean who are you know making these   who's there they're women who are abolitionists oh  yeah who was standing up and you know and face it   you know and crossing this in line in terms of  what quote unquote lady hood it was supposed to   be at the time so can you talk about what what  he was like you know the life of abolitionists   sure he travelled for up to three years on and  off with Abby Kelly an intrepid one of the first   major women orators who could take over a stage he  traveled with her in small troops from 1841 42 to   44 and he learned a little bit of his radicalism  from her in fact and then there were others yes in   fact I've been asked in Qi just a 38 the venn I've  done in the last two months enduring Yan and I'm   sorry no no it's been amazing it's been amazing  but at so many events around the country I've   been asked this question why wasn't people get up  and say why wasn't he killed what about the mobs   how was what he was attacked yes but how why am  I not more often and to some extent one has to to   realize that the truth is people didn't carry guns  as much in the early to mid 19th century day you   know they might own a hunting rifle out in Ohio or  the mob that attacked him in Indiana or the mob in   Pennsylvania but they didn't bring hunting rifles  what they did is they threw things they threw you   know brick bats that was an all-purpose word for  any object you wanted to throw that could hurt   somebody rotten eggs were used he had a live  Pig thrown on him once in a church which is   probably a badge of honor but he was attacked  by a mob in Pendleton Indiana in 1843 and he   probably would have been killed he was saved by  a fellow abolitionist named William white the   rest of his life he would write to white and say  you saved my life you know how's your family his   wrist was broken in that Rumble and he was knocked  unconscious mobs attacked in Boston mobs attacked   anywhere but there's another truth to this and  that is he learned from the Garris onehans which   is where he starts as an abolitionist for  four years the part of the purpose of their   abolitionist meetings was to rile up the audience  to trouble the water to get him to react you   know to get a response they weren't successful as  somebody didn't get angry at them well they hoped   angry without the live pigs and the brick beds but  yeah he faced he was Jim crowd more times than you   could have ever counted right and in early in his  life he tended at least this is my impression he   intended to react to I've been thrown off a train  told he can't eat in the restaurant told he can't   stay here he tended to react with outrage when  he's young the older he got if he got Jim crowed   he'd he'd be pissed off but he'd sometimes  process it with humor absurdity because what   was she gonna do there's a great moment and I'm  just gonna I'm gonna say this joke in the full   context where he talks about he's sitting on a  rail seat and a guy comes up and says what right   have you you know he says you know what right  of you to take two seats and says because I'm   a and he says what I've done give you the right  that you see right that's right that's Douglas   telling that story not David so it's really clear  I used that with a little different language last   week in Los Angeles where I got interviewed by  a comedian right bartender Thurston yes yes I   do and he said tell me about Douglas the sense of  humor so I use that one and it's sort of worked I   didn't quite tell it the way you did I'm he you  know let's talk about because you know we won   this this subject of how people reacted to him I  detected to the book that there's a gender element   here to Douglas is a so that there's I think a  stereotype of how african-americans behave but   also how they look you know in this idea of you  know being well let's just say be an ugly being   servile being stooped and here you have you know  there's this handsome you know attractive young   man who you know it's courageous standing up and  they're white women traveling with him they're   white women in the audience how did that play into  the reaction to Douglass a lot yeah look at the   image there's a reason he's the most photographed  American of the 19th century we believe that now   not just because he's so good-looking part of it  is because he traveled everywhere all the time   and everywhere he went somebody wanted him to sit  for a photograph and because he wanted to project   the opposite in look at me I'm educated I'm an  intellectual I'm dressed as but maybe I'm dressed   better than you and you're gonna listen to me and  I got something to say check me out I am NOT your   image of black people it's clear he's doing that  with these photographs and the new the recent book   by Stoffer at all called picturing Frederick  Douglass shows that analytically beautifully   but yeah he played off his own gender virility  all the time there's no question about that and   I have to tell you in this Evans collection among  other sources there are endless description that   appear in local newspapers one of the things these  scrapbooks have our endless newspaper clippings   from everywhere he goes and often they are written  by women describing his voice his presence his   presence so there's a great deal to that plus he  could you know get up and if you wanted an order   who could get up and belt out the lights from the  top of his head he could do that although frankly   he was even better at a carefully prepared text  of an analytical speech he wasn't just the male   orator who could belt out the lights for you  or deliver the sermon off the top of his head   in fact all of the great speeches have a text  all of them as opposed to the woman orator who   isn't expected to do that who is not expected to  belt out the lights who is probably just expected   to tell a story but Douglas from the beginning  I think this is important we're gonna get the   women's suffrage I'm sure but Douglas was as  he always put it a women's rights man maybe   not from day one he's so young he's 23 when  he enters the abolitionist circle old is he it's 1848 so he's 30 you know I'm still very  young he's only in his twenties when he first   goes to England but he gains all this experience  on platforms next to intelligent well-educated   women from almost day one who are he who he wants  to be equals with he wants to be accepted by it   becomes actually in time a bit of a problem  because this young guy this young black guy   who can take over a stage you know some of the  other gara Sony and abolitionists got a little   uncomfortable with the fact that audiences even in  the early 1840s they often travel in groups they   traveled as troops they would have an abolitionist  meeting there'd be three four five six speakers   they have some resolution they were to speak to  but what sometimes happen is the audience would   start saying Douglas Douglas Douglas we want  Douglas and the other speakers have to come   go over here so there was a dynamic there that  was not comfortable on the other hand I think as   it's got a lot to do with his evolving embrace  of women's equality and he's at Seneca Falls in   48 he's one of the few male speakers he's one of  the male signers he's the only black participant   at the Seneca Falls convention in 48 he's just  started in the North Star his newspaper back   in Rochester up the road and he goes back and  changes the masthead of the paper to write as of   no color or sex which remained the masthead of his  paper for years even he was even embraced women's   economic rights in the 1850s divorce rights and  so on which was considered the most radical aspect   of the women's rights movement but he played on  his virility make no mistake and it - probably   backfired on him here and there yeah well let's  let's talk about one instance where he did well   let's we'll start there and you know this please  well let's talk about his split from the Garcon   ian's sure so one of the interesting things about  guys I find interesting is so the Douglass has   this story that certainly involves violence in  terms of you know he did not pray his way you   know out of enslavement I believe in the narrative  he has this line you know you have seen how the   slave was made you know how the man was made of  slave now you'll see how the slave has made a   man and it involves vana rap violence fathers you  know this whole macho sort of thing and it's about   being violent and taking control but then he hooks  up with the Gareth sonia's any becomes a pacifist   or tries to but tries to you yes you know how much  do you feel like he actually believed it how far   in was he well I don't want to romanticize either  way when when garrison takes him under his wing   in 1841 and the Garros onehans take him under the  wing he loved cares I mean garrison did discover   him in a sense garrison gave him a career he  learned a great deal from he learned how to how   to take parts of the Bible at the beginning of a  abolitionist lecture and run with it although he   had plenty of practice in that as a preacher in  New Bedford but the pacifism of Guerra Sounion   ISM as well as the anti politics was the hardest  part for Douglass to continually politics you   mean what it was it cost the Constitution is  a covenant with death is that right the devil   or death yeah and the pacifism became harder and  harder for Douglass because though you know your   history of course of the 1840s and into the early  1850s the Fugitive Slave issue becomes paramount   especially with the Fugitive Slave Act in 1850  and even with the Mexican War plus by the time   Douglass returns and context is everything that's  what you get from historians and always country   well does return some England in 47 he's an angry  young black man he's been 18 months in Ireland   Scotland and Britain where he's experienced you  know a little bit of racism here and there but   nothing like in the u.s. and he's been lionize  he's been embraced by the entire reform movement   community of Britain Scotland and Ireland he's  met all the great abolitionist they have treated   him like a conquering hero he comes back to  America and he's just angry as hell in fact   one newspaper in Philadelphia when he goes on the  road right after he gets back from Britain calls   him the demagogue in black and I when I read  that I thought that's a chapter title but also   wonderful it's no great abolitionist from Boston  takes him aside at one point it says Fred tone it   down I mean you but that anger now is is also  against the kind of entrapment he feels by the   gara Sounion principles and strategies he wants  to break free you don't want to romanticize that   too much but it's true he wanted to break free  he needed an independence both of his career   and of his mind and part of that is now it's a  kind of a diminishment of options how long can   you keep preaching moral suasion how long can you  keep trying to change the human heart before you   want some other option you might want the option  to be the constitution in the law how can you   use the law now you might want it to be politics  political parties how can you use political power   even if you have to shoulder up to people you  don't entirely trust but even more so what about   possible uses of violence and you find a Douglass  there by 50 51 and 52 in his newspaper and this   is where Douglass mastered another genre well you  know about the autobiographies we know about the   great speeches but he also mastered for 16 years  the short form political editorial he learned how   to write as a journalist on deadline and that's  where you begin to see Douglass writing about the   possibilities of violence saying things like the  reason a slave catcher fears having a stroke cut   is because he deserves to have it cut that is  the context you literally have you know folks   being confronted in Boston in Syracuse out of guy  William Parker rescues are going right right like   there's a context like the movement is change  big context yes it's you know sometimes people   compare it to our current moment of sanctuary  cities and the protection of refugees it's it's   even beyond that yeah part of this is a developing  experience yes because this man Parker who leads   the resistance to the slave catchers and the  slave owning kills a slave holder in Christiana   Pennsylvania fled then he'd never met Douglass as  mr. Parker had been a fugitive slave himself he'd   never met Douglass but he wants heard him speak  mm-hmm I think in Philly and after he escapes   he in like three followers headed out western  New York to find Frederick Douglass he just knew   Douglass lived in Rochester and then the law is  after them rest assured they ended up in Rochester   Douglass assured them in a carriage up to the lake  and on over to Toronto and there at the at the at   the dock Parker gave Douglass his revolver as a  memento which Douglass always kept in the family   so now now he's got his own personal experience  in fugitive slave rescue and by Douglass has   count about 100 fugitive slaves escaped through  his own house over time so yeah it's it's both   ideological but it's also participatory such  that when he's writing about violence it's got   some experience behind it on the other hand again  you can't put Douglass in boxes you know he's very   very messy and complicated he is beginning to  get interested in John Brown at the same time   they met all the way back in 1848 and they have a  very interesting relationship throughout the 1850s   and sometimes that gets a little romanticized you  know John Brown made Douglass believe in violence   well no on the other hand I have them I think  meeting 11 times over about 11 years Douglass   did come to believe in certain kinds of uses of  what we would call revolutionary violence that is   violence committed in the name of a particular  political cause that can be justified he came   close to joining John Brown until he learned  that it was going to be Harpers Ferry and the   largest federal Arsenal in the country and a  suicide mission and he had the great good sense teratomas didn't even answer the letter the call  yeah I mean these were these were former slaves   who would help people to skate and Harriet Tubman  my god you know she'd been across the line many   times and this would be liberators were always  the riskiest thing for slaves and people have   often wondered why didn't more slaves in Virginia  join John Brown standards because why would you   put your trust and one old white guy with a beard  and about 18 followers who got some weapons at the   federal Arsenal at the federal Arsenal against the  state of Virginia not good odds but anyway he but   he was seriously interested in John Brown as long  as Brown was talking about what Brown called the   subterranean passageway by that he meant actually  a kind of over ground militarized railroad   Douglass had known about this so-called plan for a  long time and Brown's idea was setting up a series   of forts beginning in the upper south into the  north militarized was you know guys with rifles   and and if you could funnel a few slaves out here  in a few it's the Underground Railroad becoming   sort of militarized Douglass was interested if  there was somebody who actually wanted to try   this and it is a measure he's not alone in this  it's a measure of how a lot of abolitionists are   becoming desperate in the 1850s especially after  the Dred Scott case because you don't notice   that what's gonna happen know you don't know the  war's gonna happen you don't know if there's any   future at all and after the Dred Scott decision  the Supreme Court just said you have no future   right you have no rights get out of America right  I think like one of the things that gets lost our   minds is you know the traditional sort of lost  cause narrative is the North invaded the south   which leaves aside the fact that the way South  Carolina fires on a federal for right so some   kind makes a decision to see you it's it can't be  clear to you even if the Republican candidate wins   right that necessarily your sounds gonna secede  like you don't know you don't know it there's   gonna be a war you don't know that that war will  eventually live the lead to abolition no there's   no reason for you to know that you know and we're  all creatures of experience and exactly that's   exactly what happens with Douglas because in the  secession winter 80 60 61 seven southern states   secede from the union Douglas and he says this all  the time in his newspaper first of all you got to   realize Douglas is not in sight any Republican  political circles yet he has no inside path to   Lincoln or anybody he believes this is gonna end  in a compromise cuz it always has it always has it   always had he believed they were gonna find a way  to make a deal and of course there were attempts   at that the Crittenden Compromise and a bunch  of others were going on in Washington Douglas   said this is somehow all gonna end in compromise  and it's at that moment somewhere in February   Douglas actually booked passage to Haiti he hated  immigration as an option for black Americans he   hated colonization schemes but there were a lot  of them that bubbled up after Dred Scott and one   of them was James Redpath planted to you know to  take voluntarily black Americans to a place an   island off the coast of Haiti to make a new life  Douglass denounced all these plans mostly until   his own children got him talking about it like  dad I mean I don't know if that's what they said look dad do we have a future here or not they're  young they're thinking about being adults and   having lives he booked passage with his daughter  Rosetta his oldest who was then about 22 to go   visit Haiti and have a look and they were there  were to leave in mid or the third week of April   and there's a little passage in his newspaper that  he writes the day after the firing on Fort Sumter   trip to Haiti canceled so if that doesn't come  about Douglass might have even been can I ask you   something yes Donna has he grew up in Baltimore  I did Douglas the city if more football to me   we wouldn't even be talking about Douglass he  doesn't escape without Baltimore he he called   it his Baltimore dreams which had everything to  do with getting out of slavery on the other hand   it helps shape him you grow up in Baltimore what  was the consciousness of Douglass what would you   learn about what did you know about also is from  Maryland and our families not just from Baltimore   so I was telling Dave my fans action from the  Eastern Shore of Maryland so a little further   south from Douglas and from Harriet Tubman but  the same region so I mean they want God's it's   tough to distinguish the extent to which like  how big Douglass was in Baltimore for me versus   how big he would have been for any other Ephrem  african-american child or student at that point   so I'm not sure but I mean I read the narrative  definitely you know like kids get assigned it   in college I mean I read it probably by middle  school or something like that though yeah I've   read actually not the second one the third one the  thick one you read life and times as a kid yeah   yeah yeah yeah and it's funny cuz you don't like  life in towns but I really anyone else really no I   actually love that book you know maybe it's great  it's awful yeah yeah yeah it's not the beautiful   writing is something yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah  iiiiii I am he was huge I mean I knew the outlines   of his life I knew about the pacifism I knew about  the change from passengers my brother when he went   off to college there was a poster that's made out  of that fourth of July speech I'm excited yeah he   had on his you know in his dorm you know bedroom  so I knew all about the fourth of July speech ya   know he was he was a rock which is interesting  because this is in the echo of Malcolm X who was   really you know the big person who adapt that  period when I was young but you know Douglass   really didn't take a backseat and all it is um it  was somewhat sad than we reading the book oh sorry   how little no no no no the book actually brought  this out well though out that sat in his life but   anyway go ahead I did not understand Baltimore  as a kind of mecca for free black people oh yeah   huge free blacks I didn't I doubt that history was  completely lost I did not translate you know to me   until I read your book and so that part was just  absolutely well the year Douglass escapes which   is 1838 Baltimore had about a hundred and thirty  thousand people it was a huge and important ocean   port it was a great shipbuilding city and so on  and so forth it only had about three thousand   slaves he's in a fairly small slave population  but it had seventeen thousand three black the   free black community was large very active  churches debating societies etc etc which is   how he meets Anna probably at a church but we  don't know for sure but he gets to live amidst   within and around that community as well it has a  tremendous impact on him it makes possible a lot   of his growth and learning and knowledge so what  do you try to escape the first time Douglass it   makes us at escape attempt this failed escape  attempt while he's on the Eastern Shore right   and he's returned back and they do not sell him  South right they send him back to Baltimore which   is the oddest I mean imagine somebody trying to  escape and then being so lucky his break it was a   life yeah I mean effectively right because there's  other options like you know nach ass or something   like that but it actually enables his escape he  said anything in his blood ties or anything like   that to the family that you think certainly may  be how do you like that for ambiguity a definite   maybe he's 17 years old almost 18 he's been on the  farm owned by this man named Freeland he leads an   escape plot no question about that it's actually  good that didn't try I'm the good that they didn't   pull it off because they never made it they were  gonna steal some boats and row up the Chesapeake   right but anyway he gets caught put in Chains  walked to Eastern Maryland thrown in the Talbot   County Jail for two weeks fully expects Thomas  all it's gonna come at some point slave traders   are coming to look at later Turner's come and they  check out his teeth right his body the whole thing   Thomas all walks in one day and says I'm sending  you back to Baltimore the way Douglass tells it   I'm sending back to Baltimore you're really not  a very good slave and I will free you on your   21st birthday now that's what Douglass tells us  he's a crafty writer if you're in good behavior   Douglass chooses not to believe that and will  escape at age 20 but the theory has often been   that all was his father and hence sends him back  for that reason that's never been proven in fact   Douglass spent a great deal of energy the rest  of his life trying to figure out his paternity   the likelihood is it's one of his two masters  or two owners Aaron Anthony R Thomas all could   have been when I athen his sons could have been  some other people who were out there on the home   Hill farm where his mother lived but he went to  Thomas all its deathbed I turned out he wasn't   quite dying yet he took another year but but he  went to Thomas all to near death bed and asked   him and he didn't get a yes even s even asked  them do you know my birthday well I think it's   February of 1818 so I don't think it was all I  can't prove that there are people right now as   we speak hoping and trying to plan to do a DNA  work on Douglas something similar for different   reasons than the Jefferson DNA was done but  there are living all dan Anthony descendants   this is possible I was just glad we didn't do the  DNA business before I got the book done because   the Douglas didn't know I didn't want to know  I like it that way yes but he gets sent back   to Baltimore and it's the luckiest break of his  life just such quick questions before we you know   go to go to Q&A I'm sorry guys one of the things  that happens regrettably is when you write a book   and you have the great fortune of some amount  of people reading that book is people forget   that you like other books like you really like you  you're a fan to you nothing you like - yeah yeah   so I wish I had more time to read I know so that  I I want to finish on two things if we could the   first thing I'd like to talk about is one of the  more painful aspects of reading the book and my   god is listening to Douglas right and talk about  Native Americans oh there is a shocking yeah there   is almost a kind of imperialism about Douglas  as hard as it was to read I actually found it   tremendously important because I think with those  of us with certain politics for yet is oppression   is not ennobling it does not mean that you won't  therefore look at somebody else you know and you   know think something racist sexist cetera you  know it reminded me fence it's about you know   you have Irish who come here and they suffer their  share of oppression and I'd you know quite good at   giving it back to black men oh yeah and then you  look at Douglass and you see and how he you know   describes Native Americans which would you just  address that okay sure my students have been in   the seminar I've done own life and running  the dog with our spunk when they read those   and by the way on the Irish Douglas tended to  love the Irish in Ireland mm-hmm but not here   it was the Irish here that he had trouble and  he has these jokes all very fond of his Irish   ethnic jokes yeah those aren't pretty either no  Dino I'm not pretty on the night on the Native   American question especially later in life after  the war 1870s and 80s Douglas played on Indian   stereotypes the vanishing Indian the uncivilized  Indian the backward Indian and he tended to do   it when he was trying to exert exalt the right  to vote for blacks especially political rights   and Douglas would make this argument that black  Americans are modern they're civilized they're   educated they're American with all the birth  rights of Americans and he would to often say   not like the American Indian it just wants to wrap  himself in blankets and go hide in his hills sorry   no you got to know this though I mean it's it's  important he's still an interesting guy yeah and   still heroic in many ways yeah but he played on  Indian stereotypes which is all over the culture   mm-hmm it's all over the air he does it on the  other hand he also other places expresses great   empathy and sympathy with the Indians being you  know crushed and defeated in the West he does but   when he needed that argument by juxtaposition for  blacks stop denying us the right to vote were like   you but we want to be a citizen like you he would  play with this idea that Indians don't make good   citizens and they're not yet they're not included  in the 14th amendment hmm lest we forget so yeah   yeah there's there's some pretty ugly language  there at times I mean there are other times when   Douglas what's down his garden says things that  make you do an ouch you know like in the women's   suffrage fight that he has with Susan Anthony and  Elizabeth Cady Stanton and a few others over the   15th amendment now frankly that fight that bitter  breakup they had over the Fifteenth Amendment when   Anthony Stanton and other women suffragists  just got fed up with waiting and on the other   side Douglas and all the other Republicans who  favored the Fifteenth Amendment understood but   if you put women's suffrage in the 15th amendment  it simply doesn't pass everyone knew that everyone   with one eye open News if you do that there be  no Fifteenth Amendment and Douglas said things   like it's the black man's hour he wasn't alone  in saying that either on the other hand he went   further sometimes and said things like but women  do have their husbands to vote their interest   come on Fred you know right when I called you  modern you're not some modern think like this   is the parade by the way it's the perfect segue  into the question because you have this situation   where I think someone like Elizabeth Cady Stanton  susan b anthony they take a great degree of heat   I think from modernize for their turn to races  oh yeah you know it's an ugly turn right but I   think if we can see this in susan b anthony  we can see this in Elizabeth Cady Stanton is   I mean I'm sure I mean you know what I mean I  actually went out and you can see it in Douglas   you can see this turn to racism doesn't it say  something about how much it's a fuse the culture   at that point absolutely it's America yeah yeah  yeah and this does kind of bring up this issue   of how Douglass gets used now I mean what what is  it about Douglass we want to use you know the old   notion about getting right with Lincoln there's  there's a lot of getting right with Douglass now   what parts of Douglass do we most want to use  well certainly not the Indian stereotypes his   women's rights advocacy frankly is very usable  if if you particularly focus on the earlier part   of his life but today the conservative movement  especially libertarians and especially the Cato   Institute love and the Republican Party love to  appropriate Douglass for their ends which is all   about his advocacy of self-reliance and they claim  limited government which is frankly nonsense that   was believed an energetic activist interventionist  federal power every chance you get he hated states   rights hated well you too we all use Douglass  however we want to use him you pick your part well they were into and I didn't think I'd have  to stop the conversation on this so we have a   little time for some questions from the audience  I believe there's some mics in the back so if you   would raise your hand if you want want to ask  a question hi there's a lot to be said about   Douglass's relationship with Abraham Lincoln  I know that there have been a number of people   to choose to brand Lincoln as a total racist who  didn't care about blacks at all and did everything   for political reasons and to save the Union  what could you say to us briefly about Lincoln's   about Douglass's views of Abraham Lincoln well I'm  sorry Lincoln wasn't all one thing or all anything   anywhere Lincoln was a very wily pragmatist with  a moral core their relationship is fascinating   after the war begins Douglass first became aware  of Lincoln during the lincoln-douglas debates   Douglass actually went was in Illinois during one  or more of the lincoln-douglas debates I forget   how many he might have even attended one we don't  know that for sure but he sort of covered it or he   went there he ended up writing some things about  it but then with Lincoln's election which Douglass   was ambivalent about he supported Lincoln and the  Republicans in 1860 but only modestly he wasn't   sure if he got to trust the Republicans yet and  then in the first year of the war he didn't trust   him and he became one of the ferocious most one of  the fiercest critics Lincoln had ever had because   of the the administration's policy of returning  fugitive slaves to their owners to the Confederacy   if possible not acting directly and forcefully  against slavery trying to keep the war limited   Douglas soft Fort Sumter is a beginning of a war  against slavery and abolition war that's what he   called it against Douglass's name for the Civil  War was the slaveholders rebellion and he wanted   an abolition war to destroy them and he becomes  a virulent war propagandist and part of his war   propaganda is chastising Lincoln for being what  at one point he called the most powerful slave   catcher in the land now that's going to change  and I don't want to go on too long about this   but this that's gonna change markedly with the  preliminary Emancipation Proclamation and the   final Proclamation Douglass is concern at that  point was not Lincoln's moral core was not his   beliefs it was his policies now later when they  meet and they're gonna meet three times August of   63 August of 64 and then at the second inaugural  in March of 65 the fact that they met face-to-face   eye-to-eye those two times at the White House  then the business of Lincoln's personality his   character becomes a subject that is very important  to Douglass and he comes away saying things like   I believe I can trust that man I never been in  the presence of a white man who treated me so   seemingly honestly although he said the same  thing about John Brown too but well so it's a   it's a difficult complicated relationship I've  always been I've always said we don't want to   make too much of it there are people out there who  want to say that Douglass made Lincoln do it yeah   would that that were true what does somebody  could discover that Lincoln note or letter   that says you know this guy Douglass I've been  treating him and he's now the reason I'm gonna do   the patient it's not gonna and if somebody does  that in the movie I don't any to do it and they   might but on the other hand by the time they by  the time of 64 and 65 it's they started at very   different places and I argue in the book that  by 64 65 it's as though they've come to almost   the same script and I argue that when Douglas  Stanzi Douglas is in the audience right down to   the left when Lincoln gives the second inaugural  he's there and John was booth is right up there   yeah but when Douglas heard the second inaugural  his response was in part that he'd been writing   that speech for Lincoln for years in his own  mind but thank God Lincoln said it because if   Lincoln said it the United States just said  it and that's the important part the US has   said this not just some guy who's president and  of course Eric Foner's book on this question of   Lincoln's growth and there's a zillion books on  Lincoln to read on this but one of those iliyan   to start with is Eric Foner's book fiery trial  because it really shows that growth story for   Lincoln without romanticizing that's what I'd  recommend you start with if you haven't already   you've probably already read it though they're  gonna need the mic though so who's got the mic I thank you both for a fantastic conversation  um I was wondering professor if you could talk   a little bit about your process as a writer how  do you approach writing a biography you know you   talked a bit about those materials that you found  read that you were presented with and that sort   of began your process and I was wondering if you  could just talk about how it is that you approach   putting together a biography like this yeah again  I'll try to be brief you ask a writer how they   write and you might fall asleep at night here in  that with humility it's daunting I had lots of   outlines oh I had chapter outlines coming out of  my ears and they just kept mutating and the truth   is eventually I kind of let the chronology of  his life and the episodes of his life developed   the chapters and then I also was very aware early  that I had some big themes and they end up being I   say there's six of them in the introduction I hope  there's six because that's what he said big themes   like words and language his use of the Bible is  how deeply steeped he was in the Old Testament and   I have to explain that which is why I put the word  prophet in the title the autobiographies are a big   theme the public and the private balance is a big  theme in any biography is about the real biography   Douglas the intellectual the thinker the artist  the man with a mind who was a writer at heart   who never knew what he thought I'm convinced until  they went to his desk and wrote it down and then   lastly this theme of radical outsider who becomes  the political Insider I was aware all along that   I can't just write chapters on each of these  I got to weave them all together at the same   time they've all got to be in play some more than  others the public-private is in one chapter more   than others but then I just kind of let it evolve  and I'll admit this there were two or three big   episodes in his life that I wasn't prepared to  write when I got to it and one of the women's   suffrage fight I hadn't read enough about it yet I  wanted I was so concerned to get that right I was   reading the biographies of the Stanton and Anthony  and a lot I wasn't ready to write it so I just   left it blank in the chapter where I knew it had  to go and it came back later at the end there were   two or three others of those I just wasn't ready  for that but I had to keep it moving I wanted   to keep it moving biography also I learned this  and that I don't think I knew it first biography   always seems infinite yeah there's always  something else you can find think of your own life   if somebody if somebody fer ya wants to write your  life how much are they really gonna know that you   know so it always felt like it's never finished  there's always something else I can find and   there's lots of Douglas scholars out there and to  know them all and we're very collaborative month   most of us and we fought for example who wrote  this wonderful book a year ago called women in   the world of Frederick Douglass she and I ended  up collaborating on all the letters by Otilio   Singh whom we didn't even get to but that's okay  so it always felt infinite but you just have to   force yourself to stay put spend weekends in  your office writing and just keep it moving I   was always afraid if I ever stopped all just quit  this is too damn long of a life oh and I remember   wishing in the 1870s and 80s this sounds horrible  but I'd have these terrible morbid thoughts   what if he'd been assassinated so agent 78 the  book would be over now pretty good that's good can you hear back there we need to mic Lord it  might go there you go we'll try it again both of   your writings about both of you have written about  the Civil War and about what I call the rebranding   of the Confederacy I wanted to know what  Douglass's reaction was because I feel that we're   branding kind of happened during his lifetime and  what his reaction to that was him pulling the you   know self slaveholder rebellion becoming the lost  cause what was his reaction to this rebranding and   this rewriting of the history of the Confederacy  all right but I'd like to hear you on that too but   he hated the lost cause he spent the last third  of his life fighting it damming it wishing it   away when robert e lee died in 1870 he couldn't  stand the eulogies of robert e lee he said enough   of the quote nauseating flatteries of robert  e lee we honor a man who tried to destroy the   republic more than we honor grant for saving it he  he he developed arguably the best most thoroughly analytical critique of of a lost cause of any  American writer in the late 19th century who   was hardly alone there were plenty of others  he did his utmost to argue for and sustain an   abolitionist and what I called in another book an  Emancipation Asst vision or memory of the Civil   War and actually Dulles came to write a great deal  about this this idea of collective memory I mean   one could even call him a theorist of collective  memory if we need theorist of collective memory   a lot to say about how people cultures nations  remember collectively and he was fighting against   it's an interesting use of the word branding  and he left an enormous amount of material   to work with on that he gave endless speeches at  Grand Army of the Republic gatherings these were   Union soldier gatherings at Black Emancipation  Day gatherings arguing for the idea that the   war was caused by slavery its greatest result  was emancipation I mean its greatest creation   was emancipation and his greatest results were the  remaking of the US Constitution but he knows he's   fighting a mostly losing cause against the lost  cause by the 1880s and 1890s but not a completely   lost cause because that descent of his has a lot  of other echoes across the culture especially   black communities I would just say that you know  people often say what I person was a man at that   time you know well at that time you know we didn't  know what was right and one of the most heartening   things about reading like that critique and  David's biography is in fact in every time there   people who know what's right or wrong we just  choose to listen to some people and not listen to   others and as David pointed out you know that echo  I mean you see it you know in black reconstruction   you know you you in the book well it's not quite  but it's closer and David has this great line   at the end of the book where somebody is writing  about Douglas Douglas has died Mason they say ah   Douglas is gone and David says no Douglas merely  died he was not gone and when I see you know these   folks are pulling down these Confederate statues  today I see that Douglas is not gone you know I   mean merely dead but not gone really I thought  about that but every time we think we've won one   of these memory debates watch out circling around  it's trying to get back and get us right all right   before we close out there's always for an event  like this as you might imagine a few people   organizations that we ought to thank for their  generosity and making it happen obviously first   the Yale University Art Gallery and in particular  Malini II adore Liz Hartnett and Frank basilia end   of director Stephanie wiles belonging at Yale  an initiative of the office of the secretary   headed by Kimberly Gulf Cruise Anika's bookstore  and cafe Daniel Viera and the Gilder Lehrman   staff especially melissa mcgrath and daniel for  handling the live streaming and photography and   all things digital for this event and of course  finally on David in Tallahassee for giving us   this exhilarating I think and thus formed a  conversation about David's book we thank you

Channel: The Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition

Views: 15,345

Rating: 4.7304964 out of 5

Keywords: GLC, Slavery, Resistance, Abolition, Gilder Lehrman Center, Yale, New Haven, History, Education, Public History, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Ta-Nehisi, David W. Blight, Blight, David Blight, Book Talk, Frederick Douglass, Prophet of Freedom, Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom

Id: vh1_lZDqoMU

Length: 76min 8sec (4568 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 26 2019