Frederick Douglass

July 04, 2024

What to the Abolitionist Was the Fourth of July?

In academia and culture alike, it has become fashionable to dismiss the principles associated with American independence as shortsighted at best and intentionally exclusionary at worst. “Neither Jefferson nor most of the founders intended to abolish slavery,” wrote Nikole Hannah-Jones in the New York Times Magazine debut of the 1619 Project in August 2019. Continue Reading...

July 04, 2022

How Frederick Douglass found hope on the Fourth of July

On July 5, 1852, nearly a decade before the start of the Civil War, Frederick Douglass, a freed slave and statesman-abolitionist, offered a profound speech on seeing the Fourth of July through the eyes of a slave. Continue Reading...

May 30, 2022

‘What Shall Men Remember?’: Relearning the forgotten history of Memorial Day

Memorial Day has historically been a day set aside to commemorate the millions of Americans fallen in war. Although the day now involves celebrating America’s war dead regardless of color or creed, what many may not know is that Memorial Day’s origins are actually deeply linked to America’s struggle with racism. Continue Reading...

October 06, 2021

Books offer stability, renewal of American ideals

Long after we’ve all passed on, how will future generations remember us? One answer: books. Certainly there will be landmarks and buildings and other memorabilia that help our descendants understand our society as it exists today, along with the people who helped shape it. Continue Reading...

November 04, 2020

Race and covenant: recovering the religious roots of American reconciliation

In January 1862, Frederick Douglass, a former slave who became America’s greatest sociopolitical prophet of the nineteenth century, declared that America was facing Armageddon. “The fate of the greatest of all Modern Republics trembles in the balance.” Continue Reading...

July 20, 2016

6 quotes to help reflect on Captive Nations Week

On Tuesday, President Obama declared this week Captive Nations Week. The first Captive Nations Week was in 1959, proclaimed by President Eisenhower to call attention to the oppression of several countries in the Soviet Bloc and to encourage Americans to support fight for democracy and liberty worldwide. Continue Reading...