In honor of Frederick Douglass’s birthday – update — VOICES for REASON

The other night, I attended a performance by actor Derek Van Leer, writer and producer of a one-man show on Frederick Douglass called “My Life in Bondage.” The show was advertised as a “heart-warming, heart-wrenching performance of the amazing life of Frederick Douglass. Douglass was an American abolitionist, editor, orator, author, statesman, and reformer and is one of the most prominent figures in United States history.” Naturally, I had therefore hoped to see a dramatization of Douglass’ heroic contributions to the abolitionist movement.

But disappointingly, the performance chose to focus on Douglass’s struggles and suffering in “chattelhood” rather than what was required to relentlessly pursue freedom and “manhood.” For example, the play included a scene where Douglass suffers a severe beating at the hands of a “slave breaker” named Covey. This brutal scene is described in Douglass’s autobiographies. But what the performance leaves out is Douglass’s response. He chose to fight back and defend himself regardless of the consequences. He successfully beat Covey back after a drawn-out fight. Douglass wrote that this was a turning point in his life as he had resolved that “however long I might remain a slave in form, the day had passed forever when I could be a slave in fact…I was a man now.” Covey thereafter let him be; the slave had broken the “slave breaker.”

Van Leer’s dramatization abruptly ends with Douglass’s escape from Maryland, over which he expresses joy. He then has Douglass walking off the stage slowly with his head down.

Certainly, it required a tremendous amount of courage for any slave to attempt an escape: the journey was fraught with danger and a failed attempt often led to a worsening of one’s fate, such as being sent to the Deep South. But what’s inspiring about Douglass is not just how he suffered and survived under slavery but also the level of independent thinking, courage and moral certainty required to free himself in spite of it. His pride, and his determination to settle for nothing short of his full right to pursue his life, liberty and happiness in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds, is what makes Douglass heroic. It’s what Douglass accomplishes once he has escaped slavery–his development as a writer, orator, editor and intellectual activist–that makes him a source of inspiration today.

To pay proper tribute to Douglass and to learn from his example, why not draw attention to his views on the nature of “Self-Made Men” (the title of one of his talks) or his advocacy of “The Equality of all Men Before the Law: Claimed and Defended” (a speech he gave in a lecture series) rather than the abhorrent darkness he and so many others endured? It’s what he did in the face of that darkness that we should celebrate.