Fifty Books Project 2023

Frederick Douglass, Prophet of Freedomby David W. Blight

Douglass was the prose poet of America's and perhaps of a universal body politic; he searched for the human soul, envisioned through slavery and freedom in all their meanings.

Blight is a distinguished historian who has been writing about the Civil War era and its relevance to contemporary America for over 30 years.  This is his latest attempt to wrestle this massive project into shape and it is a magisterial and eminently readable book.  At 763 pages it is more Douglass than most people really need and there were times when having it in my bag felt like I was carrying Douglass himself on my back.  However, it captures the sweep of this man’s life, giving him his due as a saint-like prophet and capturing his limited humanity.

The first third of the biography focusses on Douglass’s early life – material well covered in his three autobiographies.  Blight uses these pages to analyze both the historical accuracy of Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglassand its ongoing impact on our view of America.  He stresses that Douglass was a propogandist, writing with an overriding political purpose, but that that purpose made him highly motivated to truth and accuracy – anti-abolitionists were quick to jump on any hint of exaggeration or inaccuracy. While this work does not wander into the modern notion of a psychoanalytic biography, Blight does take some care to imagine how the early loss of his mother, the complete lack of knowledge of his birthday or his father, and the likelihood of post-traumatic stress would affect his thinking and his relationships.  He returns to these ideas late in the book when he discusses Douglass’s continued searching for his birthday and his paternity even as a famous man in his 70s.

What Blight adds to this period of Douglass’s life that the Narrativehides somewhat is the careful apprenticeship the young Douglass goes through while emerging as an abolitionist activist and speaker.  In his own Narrative, Douglass gives the impression that, moved by the spirit of freedom, his first attempts at speaking out against slavery in at an Anti-Slavery Society meeting New Bedford are his first attempt at public speaking.  In fact, Douglass had been an itinerant preacher since before his escape from slavery and his emergence as a leading voice against slavery develops slowly, with a lengthy period of small speaking roles before he is given a prime spot.  While there is no doubt Douglass had a tremendous native talent as an orator, he also practiced his craft very consciously and self-consciously.  His fame is well-earned.

The middle third of the book is taken up largely with accounts of Douglass’s growing and evolving political acumen.  Blight is adept at summarizing the complex arguments of various factions within the abolitionist movement and showing how Douglass’s thinking incorporates and rejects varieties of these arguments.  Having begun his career as a devotee of William Lloyd Garrison’s apolitical brand of anti-constitutionalism, Douglass struggles to remain radical while also engaging in the more pragmatic political debates of his time.  His growing relationship with Lincoln, both personal and ideological, is well discussed and fascinating.

The final third of the book is as poignant as is that period of Douglass’s life.  Having with the Emancipation Proclamation and the end of the war achieved the goal that seemed impossible, Douglass struggles to move on to other challenges even while watching the total victory he had thought the 14^thand 15^thAmendments provided sip away.  This is not hagiography – Blight is clear-eyed about Douglass’s failures at the Freedman’s Bank, as Ambassador of Haiti, in his loyalty to the increasingly pro-business Republican Party and in his role with the Chicago Exhibition of 1893.  However, he generally gives great weight to Douglass’s intentions and the limitations he faces as the one black man in America from whom true greatness is always expected.  In each case one comes away with a sympathetic view of Douglass’s role in his late-life adventures.  

If Blight is every directly critical of Douglass it is in his examination of his relationship with his wife Anna.  He seems generally frustrated that Anna’s illiteracy and general shyness have rendered her historically voiceless – there is virtually no written record that directly portrays Anna’s feelings.  While Blight makes clear that Douglass remained essentially loyal to his wife, and describes in detail the effect of her death on the great man, he is also clear that Douglass turned throughout his post-escape life to more educated and articulate women – all of them white – for companionship and some form of affection. He speculates repeatedly regarding how Anna and her children might have felt about these women – who frequently came to live with Douglass and his family for months at a time – but never allows speculation to crowd out documented facts.

If I had to criticize some aspect of the book it would be its tight focus on Douglass – perhaps an unfair knock on a biography.  As Douglass spent much of his life as a professional orator, the book often falls into a catalog of places he travelled and spoke, with extensive analysis of how his various stock speeches evolved.  I would have liked a less-inward direction and more work putting this man in his social and cultural context.  There are discussions here of his relationship to Garrison, Lincoln, Booker T. Washington, WEB Dubois and Ida B. Wells to name a few.  I would have liked more about how those relationships worked within their society rather than simply focusing on what they thought of each other.

One can get a true picture of Douglass from The Narrative and from his second autobiography – My Bondage and My Freedom.  In this volume, you get a generous analysis of both of those and an independent, if clearly loving, point of reference.  Frederick Douglass led a life that is worth the effort.