Frederick Douglass -- born enslaved in Maryland, assertive interrogator of and prod to President Abraham Lincoln, later Republican ambassador to Haiti -- saw much over a long life. In a speech in 1894 he proclaimed:
I have been a watchman on your walls more than fifty years, so long that you think I ought to know what the future will bring to pass and to discern for you the signs of the times. You want to know whether the hour is one of hope or despair.
I have no time to answer this solemn inquiry at length or as it deserves, and will content myself with giving you the assurance of my belief. I think the situation is serious but it is not hopeless. On the contrary, there are many encouraging signs in the moral skies. l have seen many dark hours and have yet never despaired of the colored man’s future. There is no time in our history that I would prefer to the present. By way of Kevin M Levin
So Douglass responded to the racial and anti-democratic backlash of America's last Gilded Age. He'd seen cruelty and disappointment, but also found courage and determination.
Our turn is now.
1 comment:
I am trying. Hope is elusive, but if he could give it a go, so can I.
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