This is the second half of the tale of a personal hero of mine, Frederick Douglass. He was born a slave in Maryland around February either in 1817 or 1818.
I first became aware of his greatness when I read the letter he wrote to his “owner”. It should be required reading. To me it is every bit as powerful and impressive as The Declaration of Independence. If you’ve never read it, please do.
I am not going to do a full synopsis of his life, to get that you should read his books, they are as well written as the letter. I would recommend this one to start. These are a few of the things that made an impression on me from what I have read.
I left off when Frederick had fought his slave master and that “ rekindled the few expiring embers of freedom, and revived within me a sense of my own manhood.”
Frederick was then hired out to another slaveholder, Mr. Freeland, and was very glad this one was not religious. Frederick said the more religious they were, the more beatings and cruelty they would inflict.
While he was there, he started teaching the other slaves how to read. This had to be done in secret, and he said he did it “because it was the delight of my soul to be doing something that looked like bettering the condition of my race.”
In 1835 he began planning escape, and got three others to join him. He describes the fear and hopelessness of attempting this as being surrounded by certain death, trying to get to an small point of uncertainty.
They made plans and Frederick forged passes, but they were betrayed and arrested. His owner threatened to sell him to Alabama, but decided to send him to Baltimore to learn a trade.
One of the recurring circumstances is the threat that hangs over all slaves, they could be sold away at any time, with no regard for their families. That would have been horrifying. I imagine what it would be like if my wife or one of my kids didn’t come home because they sold away, and I would never see or hear from them again.
Working at a shipyard in Baltimore, he was severely beaten by four white apprentices because of racial tensions there. Because the attackers were white and no other white person would act as a witness, the law took no action.
After this he started working at a different shipyard and learned to caulk ships and was earning the highest wages earned by caulkers. This money he was required to give to his owner every Saturday. When reading the book, his anger at this is palpable:
“I was now getting, as I have said, one dollar and fifty cents per day. I contracted for it; I earned it; it was paid to me; it was rightfully my own; yet, upon each returning Saturday night, I was compelled to deliver every cent of that money to Master Hugh. And why? Not because he earned it,–not because he had any hand in earning it,–not because I owed it to him,–nor because he possessed the slightest shadow of a right to it; but solely because he had the power to compel me to give it up. The right of the grim- visaged pirate upon the high seas is exactly the same.”
Sometimes the owner would give him a little of the money Frederick had earned, this was more of an insult, because Frederick felt it was acknowledging that it really did belong to him and the owner knew taking it as wrong.
Slavery is evil, and his writings really drive home all of the different little ways that it destroys the soul of both the slave and the slave keeper.
In this book, he doesn’t describe exactly how he escaped, because he doesn’t want any one to suffer for helping, and he doesn’t want to shut that avenue for future slaves to escape by.
He also does not agree with the Underground Railway’s public declarations of helping slaves escape. This makes the slave owner more wary and helps him to prevent the slave from escaping using well publicized methods.
Once he escaped he married Anna, a free black woman, and they went to New Bedford, MA. He was shocked at the level of prosperity, because in the south, whites with no slaves were poor, so Frederick had assumed the north was poor because there were no slaves.
He was also surprise to watch people work with no threats or whippings, but when he found work loading a ship the joy is obvious:
“It was new, dirty, and hard work for me; but I went at it with a glad heart and a willing hand. I was now my own master. It was a happy moment, the rapture of which can be understood only by those who have been slaves. It was the first work, the reward of which was to be entirely my own. There was no Master Hugh standing ready, the moment I earned the money, to rob me of it. I worked that day with a pleasure I had never before experienced.”
While in New Bedford, he started going to abolitionist meetings and began speaking at them. From there he became an important figure in the anti-slavery movement.
One anecdote that made me laugh: After Anna died, he married a white woman. People were SHOCKED. His reply? His first marriage had been to someone the color of his mother, and his second to someone the color of his father. (I didn’t mention he was half white, and it was widely believed that his owner was his father)
I hope some of the readers here will read his books, he is one of the most powerful writers I have ever read and this little article I wrote doesn’t do him justice.
Thanks, Ron. Douglas is added to my to-read list
The Amazon link is dead
Here is all three of his autobiographies for $1.99 (Kindle)
Forgot the link, but that’s OK. Here is his complete works on Kindle for 99cents. Autobiographies, speeches, letters, etc..
Thanks!
Why do I get the feeling that next month’s “What are we reading” is going to be rather redundant?
Nah, the backlogs are large – will take a bit to get to Douglass
The new books somehow always end up on the top of the stack, there are books in my TBR pile that have been there for years. I should probably accept that I’m never going to read them and burn ’em.
I just started a book I got back in 2016, so there’s hope
My backlog is never FIFO or LIFO, I semi-randomly select from the pile (and some times take stack age/position into account, some times not).
JI gets it. There is no rush on any one title, but a lifetime of reading ahead. One must only pick an appropriate title from the stack.
Thanks for that.
Nice, there is so much power in his writings, I have reread them a few times, and might write an article on some of his speeches net.
…it destroys the soul of both the slave and the slave keeper.
That’s a point that rarely gets discussed.
Thanks again, Ron! You definitely do your hero justice here.
And the same thing happens when people are discouraged from working by government handouts.
57% pay no income tax. Proves that 57% are smarter than the rest of us. Any new tax code changes will raise that figure as well.
That’s what I was trying to convey with my links to Mark Steyn’s writings on Canada’s efforts to “care” the shit out of an indigenous tribe, paying millions per person per year, only to have them sink further into poverty, substance abuse, and misery.
Mark’s point was that not only was it a horrible waste of money, but it was a horrible waste of humans.
America did the same thing.
I remember a John Stossel show about that and he showed an arial view of a reservation farm next to a privately owned farm. The private one was green and the other one looked like it was poisoned.
This was right after one of the “activists” said the reservation farms were poor because the soil was bad.
I appreciate it.
Agreed on all counts.
Thanks!
the north was poor because there were no slaves
Hmm, and we are supposed to believe that slavery was vital to all of America’s economic growth?
slavery was vital to all of America’s economic growth
That’s obviously true – that’s why Brazil is the economic superpower it is today.
I remember reading that the south recovered economically just about 10 years after the civil war … without slavery, after being leveled by war.
Slavery just a lie peddled by the aristocracy to keep themselves in the power.
Always worth noting America became the true economic juggernaut after the civil war.
Oh, and how could we ignore Haiti?
The Caribbean Islands lack much in the way of internal resources and shipping presents a problem.
Add on a government that is destructive to human endeavor
Let me know if you find one that *isn’t* destructive to human endeavor.
Same
https://ibb.co/wSgVY4q
Who’s the guy with KK?
I wonder how many dumbasses you could fool by telling them that was Karl Marx?
All of them?
Nice pic.
You had me @ Oyster & Ale House.
I can see spending a lot of money in a place like that.
Something I never realized until reading elsewhere was how slaves were contracted out as labor to businesses or other people, sometimes in very skilled positions, by their owners. I had assumed that it was always in direct labor such as on their own farm/plantation or as domestic servants.
That was a surprise to me as well.
It was a method a small number of slaves were able to use to be able to purchase their own freedom.
Another such person
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Smalls
Firsting is the ultimate aphrodisiac.
How would you know?
He can’t resist his hand?
He said firsting. With an R.
But sixting is just masturbating but being unable to finish…
Is Bro the six-fingered man? I know a fella looking for him.
“I was now getting, as I have said, one dollar and fifty cents per day. I contracted for it; I earned it; it was paid to me; it was rightfully my own; yet, upon each returning Saturday night, I was compelled to deliver every cent of that money to Master Hugh. And why? Not because he earned it,–not because he had any hand in earning it,–not because I owed it to him,–nor because he possessed the slightest shadow of a right to it; but solely because he had the power to compel me to give it up. The right of the grim- visaged pirate upon the high seas is exactly the same.”
Something something taxation is theft.
That’s different! The government doesn’t threaten…doesn’t compel…doesn’t um…social contract!!!!
I knew I should have read the terms and conditions.
Great writeup, Ron. It’s been too long since I read any of Douglass’ works. I’m going to have to remedy that.
Thanks
8 cubic yards of topsoil delivered. Now to move it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRh0QiXyZSk
I’ll order a load and invite all the Glibs over for a a a an early Honey Harvest, yeah, that’s it, early Honey Harvest.
I did 7 yards in 2020, onto the garden, I need more this year.
Not saying you need this or anything, but I go get my mom about 3 pickup truck beds full of mulch every spring. So my son convinced me to get this do-hickey. It’s marvelous.
Speaking of the horrific spectre of toxic masculinity
In more modern times, far-right groups have launched mixed martial arts and boxing gyms in Ukraine, Canada and France, among other places, focused on training far-right nationalists in violent hand-to-hand combat and street-fighting techniques. It’s caught the attention of intelligence authorities, especially in Europe, where various reports have noted the role of combat sports and MMA in radicalizing and promoting far-right violence. A series of collaborative efforts between governments, national sports associations, and local gyms in places such as Germany, Poland and the United Kingdom have introduced intervention and prevention programs.
The U.S. is comparatively far behind, which will only become more and more problematic, especially since the phenomenon is growing in the country, building on the established fight-club culture of MMA far-right extremists. The leader of a Maryland skinhead group, for example, once ran a gym to “recruit and train white supremacists in mixed martial arts.” Four members or associates of the racist, violent Rise Above Movement (RAM), the self-described “premier MMA club of the Alt-Right,” pled guilty to conspiracy to riot after the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. An online propagandist for that now-defunct group was spotted among protesters on Jan. 6 last year. When members of the white supremacist group Patriot Front marched in Washington, D.C., in December 2021, they were accompanied by a new media outlet created by RAM’s founder, Robert Rundo, who is working to create a network of far-right MMA “Active Clubs” in the U.S. and abroad.
——-
The intersection of extremism and fitness leans into a shared obsession with the male body, training, masculinity, testosterone, strength and competition.
Let’s hear it for fat, drunk and stupid.
*laughs and lifts heavy shit*
“pled guilty to conspiracy to riot after the 2017”
That’s a new one for me. We planned a riot or we participated in and encourage a riot?
…is no way to go through life, son, but I’ve done OK.
MY daughter’s ex was not a drunk, add lazy onto the list and his pictures shows up in the dictionary.
I suspect that the Professional Victims are about to remember that firearms training and competitive shooting exist. This should be fun.
MILITIA TRAINING CAMPZZZ!
God bless this guy too! What a world…
SEE IT: Man, 73, shoved to ground, kicked but won’t give up wallet to Manhattan mugger
I’m sure the most serious thing the attacker will face will be the smoking charges.
He was smoking? 15 to life.
Refusing to give up “your” wallet is toxic masculinity. Everyone knows that proper right thinking people of sensitivity immediately submit to violence and aggression. That’s how we fight toxic masculinity.
Unless it’s Ukraine.
“I am a recovering far right nationalist”
/Stands up at the intervention and prevention program meeting
They’re going after gym bunnies now? SMDH
They’re going anything that smacks of bro culture. I’m convinced that’s part of why some vindictive governors kept gyms closed during the pandemic long after other stuff reopened.
It’s why a lot of places tried to shut down gun stores during the pandemic and had to get shot down by SCOTUS. Can’t stop people exercising their 2nd.
Sadly, no one wanted to do this with the 1st.
obsession with the male body
Gay?
For those of us working to find better pathways to reach at-risk youth, understanding the ways that far-right groups recruit and socialize youth — in ways that go well beyond rhetoric and ideas — is crucial. It’s critical that leaders, including parents, physical trainers, gym owners, coaches and others in the fitness world understand how online grooming and recruitment can intersect with spaces that we generally think of as promoting health and well-being. The realm of online fitness now provides a new and ever-expanding market for reaching and radicalizing young men; and it requires our targeted focus and resources to try and stop the cycle.
We have to teach those boys to hate themselves and to be ashamed of what they are.
Boys are defective girls. It is known.
To be fair, if you want to understand how online grooming and recruitment work, you should go to the experts. Who can be found in Hollywood, the media, the education establishment, and the more fetid precincts of leftism.
Bad chocolate…
Roman Abramovich and Ukrainian Peace Negotiators Suffer Suspected Poisoning
Who to believe?
Did they accidently eat AYDS
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UP_uiiRAZqs
It has to be 40 years since I’ve seen that commercial.
Apparently that’s not the only thing with that name that can make you lose large amounts of weight quickly.
It’s obviously a side effect of the vaccine and they deserved it.
LOL!
I don’t get it.
This help?
https://media-cldnry.s-nbcnews.com/image/upload/t_fit-1240w,f_auto,q_auto:best/rockcms/2022-01/220105-jada-pinkett-smith-alopecia-2021-ac-1045p-375e95.jpg
Best part is people trying to explain why his behavior is defensible.
Surprise
Russian scientists are finding themselves isolated as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine enters its second month.
The country’s Mars rover project with the European Space Agency is on hold. Russian institutions have been suspended from CERN, the world’s largest particle physics lab, in Switzerland. A prestigious math conference has been moved from St. Petersburg to a virtual meeting, and Russian scientific journals are being frozen out of key international databases.
High-profile scientific journals such as Science and Nature aren’t rejecting research submitted by Russian scientists, but financial sanctions placed on Russia may make paying journal processing fees tricky. Ukrainian researchers are calling for a complete boycott of Russian institutions and academics.
But while welcoming the outpouring of support across the West for Ukrainian scientists, some academics think that shunning all Russian scientists could be counterproductive.
No
fucking
way.
It’s like politicizing every aspect of life might not be a great idea…
I was at an old-people family restaurant a couple of weeks ago that had a salad bar/buffet. By my estimate, people were going heavy on the Russian dressing–maybe fears that it will soon be embargoed?
The one area of science/engineering in which Russkies still have the market cornered is high voltage spark gaps / gas switchgear / specialty tech glassblowing. They’re outstanding in RF too; most of the best US RF guys are actually Russians by birth, even in DoD.
Alienating these guys serves no useful purpose and is counterproductive to getting the talent and know-how that the US needs.
This is why all my replacement variacs and vacuum tubes are either from Russia or the Czech Republic?
Yes
The Russkies have always had the edge in high power RF applications that aren’t semiconductor based.
?
Completely off-thread, but six minutes of highlights from one of the more odd soccer matches in England (well, Wales, actually) last weekend: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1JwGQldSWk
I’m being toxically masculine/white supremacist right now (lifting weights).
However, I’m singing along with this wonderful song.
That must cancel out the bad, right?
2 thousand twenty two
Party over oops out of time
Yep, still relevant.
These unboxing videos…
TIL an AT4 is really a “grenade launcher”.
WRT slaves doing skilled labor. That was one reason non-slave-owning whites were so poor – the cracker carpenter or bricklayer was competing with, literally, slave labor.
That was the cause of the racial tensions that got Frederick beat up in Baltimore, the blacks(free and slave) were undercutting the white labor rate.