Born Frederick August Washington Bailey on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, Douglas escaped from slavery in 1838. He was soon recognized in the North as a speaker of unusual power, and his famous Narrative was published in 1845. As the editor of numerous journals, he was among the first to urge free blacks to take up the Union cause. After the war he was an advocate for the Fifteenth Amendment and women's rights and served as minister to Haiti from 1889 to 1891. Many may not know the full history of Haiti, but at one time it was a very prosperous and Christian based country , until others came to rule under evil tactics.
Frederick Douglas at the age of sixteen refused to let his owner continue to beat him. One day young Frederick fought his master back, his master never whipped him again. "I now 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 did not hesistate to let it be known of me, that the white man who expected to succeed in whipping, must also in killing me".
Frederick Douglas was a great writer, these are some of the things that he declared during his days, He says; "We have talked long enough; we were now ready to move; if not now, we never should be; and if we did not intend to move now, we had as well fold our arms, sit down, and acknowledge ourselves fit only to be slaves. I have observed this in my experience of slavery, that whenever my condition improved, instead of increasing my contentment, it only increased my desire to be free, and set me to thinking of plans to gain my freedom. I have found that, to make a contented slave, it is necessary to make a thoughtless one. It is necessary to darken his moral and mental vision, and as far as possible, to annihilate the power of reason. He must be able to detect no inconsistencies in slavery; he must be made to feel that slavery is right; and he can be brought to that only when he ceases to be a man."
Frederick Douglas knew God and his quest for freedom was a result of his relationship with Christ, he said " I love the pure peaceable, and impartial Christianity of Christ: I therefore hate the corrupt, slaveholding, women-whipping, cradle plundering, partial and hypocritical Christianity of this land. That which is inhumane can not be divine."
Many blacks in history knew what struggling was all about. Blacks today in America have it totally different than in Fredick Douglas's day. Many like him would do anything to have freedom and fought until they either died or obtained it. Many of us don't want to struggle, we whine and cry at any type of adversity. But where there is no struggle, there is no change. Job made up his mind I'm going to struggle in this place of sickness and disease, loss and grief until my change comes. Many slaves struggled with the evil of oppression for many years with the hope that their change would someday come. We must live with the same mindset, that one day the struggle will be over for me and for you, hang in there your freedom and your change is on the way!
"If there no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom and yet deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, and it may be both moral and physical, but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong that will continue till they are resisted with either words of blows or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurances of those whom they oppress.....Men may not get all they pay for in this world, but they must certainly pay for all they get." Frederick Douglas
This post is awesome and made me reflect on my own struggles. I love the fact that Fredrick Douglass knew that men without vision often lacked the ability to see farther than their own pain. I too understand ( it took my four years to get the lesson) that if I did not struggle, I would not appreciate victory thru Christ. We need to remember John 16:33, where Jesus told us that their would be trials and tribulation,but he has overcome them all. Can we say AMEN to that!!!!
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