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FREDERICK DOUGLASS:
A One-Time
Enslaved Person’s View
of Religion
and Its Practitioners.
INTRODUCTION:
This was written in 1841: “Prejudice
sinks into insignificance in my mind, when compared with the enormous
iniquity of the system which is its cause—the system that sold my four
sisters and my brothers into bondage—and which calls on its priests to
defend it even from the Bible! The slaveholding ministers preach the
divine right of the slaveholders to property in their fellowmen. The
southern preachers say to the poor slave, ‘Oh! if you wish to be happy
in eternity, you must be obedient to your masters.’ I used to attend a
Methodist church, in which my master was a class leader; he would talk
most sanctimoniously about the dear Redeemer. He prayed at morning,
noon, and night; yet he could lash up my poor cousin by his two thumbs,
and inflict stripes and blows upon his bare back, till the blood
streamed to the ground! all the time quoting scripture, for his
authority, and appealing to that passage of the Holy Bible which says,
‘He that knoweth his master's will, and doeth it not, shall be beaten
with many stripes!" Such was the amount of this good Methodist's piety.’
Those eloquent words were written by
Frederick Douglass, who was born around 1817, son of an enslaved woman
and probably the son of the man who claimed to own him. We don’t know
the exact date of his birth, since slaves were not supposed to know
those kinds of things, for they were property, not human beings.
In 1808, Congress had passed a law
ruling that Africans could not be imported any longer. That meant that
the notorious practice of kidnapping Africans from their home countries,
and shipping them to America had ended.
Though ending that practice was a step
forward in one sense, another practice began to take its place, which
was also diabolical and inhuman. The market value of those who were
enslaved shot up, and females began to be viewed as breeding stock. I’m
sure some of you have heard or read the epic statement by Sojourner
Truth, who at 6 feet 1 was highly valued for the size and strength of
her children – 13 in all. Listen to her description of that loss as
contained in a larger statement she made at a women’s rights conference
in Akron, Ohio in 1851:
That man over there say
a woman needs to be helped into carriages and lifted over ditches and
to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helped me into carriages
or over mud puddles or gave me a best place. . .
And ain't I a woman?
Look at me. Look at my arm!
I have plowed and planted
and gathered into barns
and no man could head me. . .
And ain't I a woman?
I could work as much
and eat as much as a man--when I could get to it--and bear the lash as
well.
And ain't I a woman?
I have born 13 children
and seen most all sold into slavery, and when I cried out a mother's
grief none but Jesus heard me. . .
And ain't I a woman?
That little man in black there say a woman can't have as much rights
as a man cause Christ wasn't a woman. I ask him, Where did your Christ
come from? From God and a woman! Man had nothing to do with him! If
(Eve) the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world
upside down, all alone, together women ought to be able to turn it right
side up again.
Douglass was taken from his mother when
he was an infant, and saw her only four or five times before she died
when he was six. He was not allowed to go to her funeral or burial. At
age 17, he attempted to escape from slavery and was captured, suffering
a brutal beating upon his capture. But on his second attempt, Douglass
succeeded. Six years later, he was persuaded to say a word about his
experiences as a slave to a meeting of the Massachusetts Antislavery
Society. The abolitionists were astounded by his articulateness and the
power of his message, so much so that he became one of their most
popular speakers.
When he began to attain a
certain degree of prominence, he feared capture by those who claimed to
own him. The law in the North allowed escaped slaves to be returned to
their Southern masters. When capture such as that occurred, many times
those captured were sold to Deep South slave traders, and put on the
plantations of Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi, which was next to a
death sentence.
Fearing that, Douglass fled to England
and Ireland in 1847, returning only after British friends purchased his
freedom from his original so-called owner. His autobiography, which was
published in 1845, had helped to galvanize the antislavery movement in
the U.S. and Britain, and his passionate political involvement inspired
thousands, Black and White, to join the struggle.
But how was it that Douglas was driven
to be free and others were not? Here’s his description of the incident
that changed him forever:
After a failed attempt to escape, his
so-called owner, Captain Andrew, leased him to a Mr. Covey, a
particularly brutal man, known for his ability to break high-spirited
young Black men. Covey was worse than Douglass had ever imagined. In the
midst of one vicious beating, Douglass did something he had never done
before: he fought back. As he writes:
It was the turning-point in my time as a
slave. It rekindled the expiring embers of freedom and revived in me a
sense of my own manhood. I now resolved that however long I might remain
a slave in form, the day had passed forever when I would be a slave in
fact. I did not hesitate to let it be known that the white man who
expected to succeed in whipping me, must also succeed in killing me.
What Douglass
demonstrates is that freedom is first and always an inner spiritual
matter. Inward strength empowers the fight for other freedoms. We’re
seeing that demonstrated all over the Middle East. What most of us had
been led to believe was a region of Osama bin Laden-look-a-likes, has
instead proven to be nations where liberty and freedom are highly
prized, so much so that hundreds have given their lives in the struggle.
There are those who think it should be a
wakeup call for Americans to renew our commitment to fight for our hard
won freedoms and rights that are fast being eroded and endangered by
policies that are driving the clock back to a time many of us thought we
would never see again. Here’s how I put it in a guest column for the
News-Press after Gov. Scott introduced his budget to the Florida
legislature; unfortunately, my column was not printed, but here’s part
of what it said:
I wish I could introduce Gov. Rick Scott
to Jesus; it’s evident from the state budget he submitted to his Tea
Party enthusiasts, that they’ve never met.
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Whereas Jesus said he
had come to bring good news to the poor, the governor has proclaimed tax
cuts for the rich.
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Whereas Jesus preached
in Matthew 25 that it was He who actually was being helped when we cared
for the sick, Gov. Scott is making cuts to the hospitals, nurses and
physicians who take care of the sick.
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Whereas Jesus praised
our visiting those who are in prison, the governor is cutting the prison
budget by $82 million and firing 1,690 correctional workers.
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Whereas Jesus said,
“Suffer the little children to come unto me for of such is the kingdom
of heaven;” Gov. Scott is slashing education monies by 10%.
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In the last election,
billionaire Scott hoodwinked the voters to ignore the fact that his
former company had to pay a fine of $1.8 billion dollars for Medicare
and Medicaid fraud. And for every Tea Party enthusiast who thinks Scott
walks on water, here’s a biblical bulletin: That was Jesus, not Scott.
As one of my professors at Oxford told us, “The task of the rich is
always to convince the commoners that their interests are one and the
same.” Not. It’s easier now to understand why Jesus said, “It’s harder
for a rich man to enter heaven than for a camel to go through the eye of
a needle.”
There was more, but
my point is clear: Our nation is lurching towards the brink. In
Wisconsin, can you believe that their governor, who gave the rich a $114
million tax break only two days after taking office, is now attempting
to legislate away collective bargaining rights of government workers –
that includes teachers, police, and firemen?
We’re fighting two wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan that can’t be won, and worse, we don’t know how to let go
and get out, without leaving an even worse mess than we have now. If it
costs $1 million a year for every soldier we have there, can you imagine
the total costs over eight years, and how much it has added to the
deficit we suddenly seem so concerned about – a concern that was
nonexistent until the election loss of the White House in 2008. Make no
mistake about their basic concern: It is to regain power and oust the
current president.
There are plenty of other concerns as
well:
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The rights of women to
choose whether they will become a mother are facing a frontal assault.
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We’re shooting ourselves
in the foot thinking we can solve immigration issues playing like it’s a
game of cops and robbers, when in fact it’s mostly deserving people from
countries where America’s narcotics appetite has destroyed their law
enforcement and their civil society. (I hope you will all turn out for
Dick Nogaj’s presentation on immigration this Tuesday night. He knows
more about this important subject than probably anyone in our
congregation.)
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We all know that millions
are out of work and have lost their homes, some of our members even.
Last Monday, I called the News-Press reporter, Mary Wozniak,
about her excellent story Sunday on Linda Bassett, who is out of a job
and about to lose her home to foreclosure. She told me Linda’s trial was
scheduled to be held that afternoon at 1. I called my friend, attorney
Howard Freidan, and he advised me to have her ask for a continuance and
then arrange to come and consult with him.
I went to the court
and met with Linda for the first time and told her what Howard had said.
When her case was moved from the rocket docket to a different courtroom,
I went with her. Then her case was called. The lawyers for the plaintiff
told Judge McIvers they were ready. And when he asked Ms Bassett if she
were ready, she spoke very softly and asked for a continuance so that
she could secure an attorney. When he asked her if she had one, she
pointed to me. I went forward and explained that I had arranged for
counsel to meet with her. Very compassionately, the judge asked Ms
Bassett if she were living in the home; she said she was. He asked is
anyone else living there with you; she said no. He asked do you have a
job. She said, No, she was disabled. He asked did she have any children;
she said no. After some discussion, he continued the case until March
22, but with the promise that she would have an attorney within 10 days.
Fortunately, another attorney, other than Mr. Freidan, has agreed to
take her case pro bono.
I’m not sure what will happen to Ms
Bassett, but the system in Florida is chewing up our fellow citizens
like her by the thousands. So much so that national ACLU in New York is
examining the situation and may well decide to file a class action
lawsuit in Florida federal court. They’ve called twice, and we’ve had 45
minute conversations both times. (I do hope that you will be present
with us after both services March 6th when Howard Simon, the
Executive Director of Florida ACLU will be present to give us an
update.)
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This coming Saturday, I’m
taking my FGCU class to Tampa to join in a protest with the Coalition of
Immokalee Workers against Publix. A penny a pound to go to the workers
is not an unreasonable request for the beautiful tomatoes we’ve come to
expect.
CONCLUSION.
The justice for
which we labor is never equal justice, but a bias in favor of the
poor…what Roman Catholics call a “preferential option for the poor.”
Justice always leans toward mercy for the widows and the orphans,
towards the poor and the homeless, towards the sick and the
disadvantaged.
Shalom. Salaam Aleikum.
Amen. And blessed be.
Ain’t I
a woman? A found poem
from Sojourner Truth's most famous speech at a women’s
convention in Akron, Ohio in 1851.
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