And for the day that’s in it, a look back at Frederick Douglass’s 4th of July appeal for the ages.
As HBO and Sky Documentaries’ emmy-nominated retrospective showcases Frederick Douglass in Five Speeches.
And one of the actors who recites one of his oratories asks… why do people not know more about this man?
We here on this site, of course, know him as more than that guy with the crazy big hair in the background in the film Harriet.
Crazy would be about right, you would feel ticked off too if you’d been born into and lived your young life a slave.
Until he effected his own escape from Baltimore, disguised as a sailor, and fled to New York to put his stamp on his times.
A world statesman
Another actor speaks of Douglass as a figure who spanned the 19th century.
And the most famous black man of his time.
And not just in America but in Britain and Ireland where he took refuge after he wrote his Narrative of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave.
And who bought him his freedom.
Douglass’s Edinburgh
Not that it’s obvious as it should be but Douglass lived in Edinburgh in 33 Gilmore Street.
Douglass instantly fell in love with Scotland’s capital (well, you would) and Scotland Douglass.d
And he waxed lyrical about ‘the Carlton Hill, Salysbury Crags and Arthur Seat” for giving Edinburgh “advantages over any city I have ever visited.”
He was less fond of Scotland’s newly-formed Free Presbyterian Church which took money, £3,000, from Deep South slaveholders.
And wrote to his friend William Lord Garrison back in America of ‘Scotland being a blaze of anti-slavery agitators.’
Man of the people
The only evidence that Douglass was ever in Scotland is in the records of his speeches and the tireless work.
Of the Frederick Douglass in Britain and the Historic Environment Scotland sites.
The mural of Douglass only put up this decade on the Edinburgh street where he lived.
And tour guides such as Hannah Mackay Tait who will help you walk in the great man’s footsteps.
Better still as I did find yourself in Washington DC and visit Douglass’s house Cedar Hill looking down the hill on the capital.
For a taster, of course, watch the excellent Frederick Douglass in Five Speeches
Where you’ll hear how Douglass challenged the good people of Rochester, New York in an American Independence Day in 1852 to consider this question…
On a pedestal
‘What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?
The people of Rochester took his words on board and before the end of the century had erected a statue to him.
The first to a black-American in the country.
No such statue exists in Edinburgh although his influence would be as high as Dr Martin Luther King.
While slavery apologist Lord Dundas still looks down on us all from 150ft in the Edinburgh sky.
Erected in 1827, Frederick Douglass would, of course, have passed it regularly.
Echoes from history
One can only imagine what he thought but we can assume that he would have much to say about the direction of this island.
And for the day that’s in it I’m again listening to his, and Dr King’s orations.
And suggest you too take in Douglass’s 4th of July appeal for the ages