Refusal and the Future of Activism

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How comeome s. point percent, AfPy as of janary thirieth, twenty six is repentative variable and earned onunds swet to programing. point five percent new client bst for threeths up to one hundred fifty thousand dollars direct depit one thousand dollars monthund invest account for a point two five percent increase cashount off by Ffrroeragege LLC mem Fina IPC,ot b hundred and fifty years ago They were hunting us down to kill us and now They're hunting down immigrants to deport them This is First America, the true story of how the United States came to be and how we got to this present moment Listen to First America wherever you get your podcast. n july fourth seventeen seventy six An Irish born American named John Dunner is given a document handandwritten in quill pen on parchment He gets to work, placing every letter and punctuation point in his printing frame piece by piece. Working through the night, he starts printing his broadsides As the first copies are drying, the words of the Declaration of Independence are set in print We hold these truths to be self evident that all men are created equal that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights. that among these are life Liberty and the pursuit of happiness that all men are created equal becomes one of the central dilemmas of American history part of an ongoing and defining struggle Hello there, welcome to American History. I' Don Weildldan For the two hundred fifteth anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, we have invited a number of our favorite guests to discuss their personal favorite moments of our history moments that particularly capture the aspirational spirit of this uniquely American celebration. With me today is Kelly Carter Jackson, the Michael and Denise Kellen sixty eight professor in the Department of Africana Studies at Wellesley College in Massachusetts She is the author of the award winning book, Force and Freedom, Black Abolitionists and the Politics of Violence, and We Refuse, A forceful history of Black Resistance among others Kelly, great to see you again. Thanks for your time. All good Yes, all good. Thankks so much for having me again. Of course, happy semi quincententennial, if you can even get that word out of your mouth, my God. I could not. I've just been saying happappy two hundred fifty. Exactly. Thank you for taking this question. What subject, event, era, personality do you find most inspiring at this time in the sppirit of two hundred fifty Hm. Okay, I'm so biased, but I always think about Frederick Douglas. I always think about Fredick Douglas. Yeah I really see Freder Douglas as like The premier American. I mean, he lives such a storied life and often when I think about the Fourth of July I think about his famous What to the sllave is the fourth of July. And here in Boston, on the third of July, every year, people take turns reading portions of his speech in public. So it's this big sort of forum. lotots of people gather around and it is one of the most beautiful sort of collective artistic acts where people get to sort of just spend time with his words and take different paragraphs reciting what he wrote. And I think about it every year. it's just really, really special. Yeah. It happens every year where we live in Martha's Vineyard. you know, he spoke there many times and vacation there and it happens there. Well, he sits squarely in the midst of an era of a whole era of American history that I think we should talk about in the Spirit of two hundred fifty, which is the abolitionist movement. But first I want to know about your career first, how did you come to study Black resistance? Is that what we would call that particular field of study? Yeah. ye, that's a perfect encapsulation. I would say in college, I Majored in print journalism. I thought I was going to be a journalist, but I minored in African American studies and I felt almost like I should have switched my major in minor. I was so into all of the courses that I took In African American studies on Black history, and I did my senior thesis on John Brown. So I really got into the abolitionist movement. You know, I'm taking classes in Frederick Douglas Hall. and Howard is such a special place to study. I got paired with an advisor. She introduced me to the archive. She took me to the Moreland Spinggard Research Center, which is one of the largest repositories of African American history. and I just went all in. I mean, I could not get enough. Like the first time I read letters that Freder Douglas wrote to his daughter. And I was like, oh my gosh, this is the actual letter. Like this is the paper that he touched that he like I mean, I just could not get enough. And Howard is just so special when it comes to like activism and student activism and awareness Yeah, that's my origin story Douglas is such a fully human person. I mean, it's so silly to say they all are, but foundounding fathers we sort of consign to history more so. but ye. Frederick Douglas is living and breathing. You can feel it in history Yeah It's the tension between the ideals of this country and the reality of how this nation was really built is a constant play of forces that's fascinating in this time to consider Unfortunately, we often speak of enslavement in the Americans on this series. It is sadly such a large chapter in the story of the United States We'll get to abolition in a moment, but first We should address how fundamentally embedded slavery was in the life of this nation, North and south Before the Civil War, Absolutely. Yeah, it was a prime factor in U. S economic growth. Let's just talk through that a bit. Yeah, I mean, I don't think people realize Isabraellel Wilkerson says this in her bookcast that we have been a country with slavery longer than we have been a country of free people. And that to me is always sort of staggering. You know, we're celebrating two hundred fifty years of American history and yet slavery is older than the country in a lot of ways. And I think that tells you a lot about what you need to know about the United States that slavery really is this Olson a national sin. It is Economically huge business It build this country politically, it is so embedded when we think about why there was even a Confederacy, why people were so bent on holding on to the institution of slavery because it protected their political power and their economic power and their social power. It has its sort of roots and tentacles everywhere in the country so much so that you can readily see to this day the afterlives, the after effffects of slavery. And so it's kind of hard to discuss America two hundred fifty and not talk about that duality, the fact that The founding fathers are being catered to by enslaved people while writing the Declaration of Independence. Thomas Jefferson is being served by enslaved people while he's writing we the people. you know, it just is kind of mind boggling the cognitive dissonance that you h me to have when talking about America and the institution of slavery. By eighteen sixty, four million enslaved people which represents, as you say, a massive amount of the nation's total wealth. And I think that's really important just even intellectually in never mind emotionally, to understand this as a facet of enslavement that people often don't consider. I mean, they get lost in the stories of of of how this lifestyle was led and this practice was led, but the fact of the statistics are really fascinating Their labor produced, of course, the lucrative crops like tobacco, rice, and cotton. On the other side of the Mason Dixon line, you've got northern merchants, textile mill owners, insurers Also accumulating vast amounts of wealth Financing, transporting processing the goods when you consider All of that produced by enslaved labor. whichich of course, you know, we know The math plays through, you know, when you do these kinds of things economically, you understand that labor is the major cost of anything. And so here we are I think people forget that or maybe aren't even aware of the fact that when the South seceded from the United States, New York City was going to join them. That New York City was like, wait a second, all of the banking, all of the insurance companies, all of the investments are properly held within Manhattan You had a lot of people in the North who were deeply sympathetic to the South because their economic livelihoods were tethered to the institution of slavery Exactly eight of the first twelve U. S. presidents slave holders. I mean, that's how fundamentally, not never mind, you know, Jefferson and Washington and all these guys at the very beginning writing these these ideas, these contradictory ideas critical ideas in the founding documents, it plays forth for decades right to the Aebellum period and all of that And then it was written into the Constitution, of course, before that. You know, Th fifths compromise seventeen eighty seven was the agreement between during the US. Constitutional Convention that states that three fifths of a state's enslaved population would be counted for determining both taxation and representation in the House of Representatives. So it's that fundamental. it's the rule of law, you know? That you are. written into the Constitution inhumanely that you are not a complete person. You are not five fifths of a person. You are three fifths of a person. And that counting mattered because slave holders wanted their representation within Congress, their political representation based on the census, based on the numbers, based on like your population density. And so being able to count enslaved people, but not quite people is just mind boggling to me that it in it's not someone's like manifesto, it's not in someone's diary. This is in the Constitution of the United States. Slavery is a part of our fabric. And I think we need to be honest about that because there's an attempt to really race or forget or sort of like cherry pick the way that we talk about the country. but you can't allow America to really be its best self until you look at it completely, until you look at All the things that make it beautiful and ugly and terrible and hopeful, all in the same space. Thank you. I'm saying it all the time on this show and in my life Can we get over all the oh my God, you know, the victimization of why do we talk about this stuff? when we're just talking about it. It's not the reality today. There are definitely factors that we need to discuss as reality. but what we are talking about is a history that really is in some regards, a triumph, at least, you know, of people deciding to change things, which is what we're going to talk about right now But to under but first you have to understand the context, which is what we've just been doing. I want to cap that conversation by saying, you know, under the law Enslaved people were considered property. That's really important here Then comes the landmark eighteen fifty seven Dred Scott decision, which goes further That says by the U. S. Supreme Court's rule Black people enslaved or free were not citizens. Okaykay? That's as low as it gets. I mean, everything's low. Yeah. but that's the one we have no rights. Yeah. you aren' even you aren't even like here, you know, you're not anything to do. So yes. All of that is to say The abolitionist movement has to move that argument from the depths of despair you know, our view of it. Yeah. to a whole otherother way of life in this country, an entire rebirth Thankks to the likes of Frederick Douglas and all the rest of them that's what we're going to discuss today. So when does the abolitionist movement really begin? Where are the roots? Are they here in the US I would say and this is like debated, but I mean like scholars tend to pinpoint their starting points a little bit differently. But for me, the abolitionist movement starts the moment Eslaved Africans are brought on ships and start resisting. Like the moment they start resisting, no one wanted to be enslaved. There are rebellions on slavave ships. One out of every ten ships has a rebellion on it And the moment Africans are brought to the New worldor, they are petitioning, advocating for their freedom. So you do have these waves in which you get abolitionist leaders who sometimes get a little bit more volume, sometimes get a little bit more attention in their movement. But in the early seventeen hundreds and the eighteen hundreds You have people who are constantly speaking out about the institution of slavery, calling it wrong, saying it's bad. Equiano writes his slave narrative talking about the evils of slavery. Phyllis Wheatley, you know was talking about this as well. But the abolitionist movement that sort of we all popularly know really has its genesis in the eighteen thirties. William Loyd Garrison It starts the American Anti Savery Society in eighteen thirty one or the New England Anti Savery Society in eighteen thirty one, the American Anti Savery Society in eighteen thirty two. So by the eighteen thirties, you really have this formal official abolitionist organization. But before that, there is movement, there is traction, certainly in UK and England, they have their own abolitionist movement So there are waves to it But I think it's just important to say regardless of where you start it, that people are always resisting the institution of slvery Well, this is a you know, a classic of white saviorism, you know, like whoa, whoa, whoa. was there was abolitionists before White people started getting on the right side of it. For Willi Loy Gearserson, ye. I mean, I love William Lloyd Garerson, but he's not the only one. Yeah, exactly. Even before, I mean, I would suggest sixteen eighty eight, there were the German Quakers in Philadelphia Yeah German Quakers in Pennsylvania lived in an area called Germantown to this day. This was a village unto itself. It joins Philadelphia later They issue in sixteen eighty eight. Okaykay? This is way before the country here eighty eight years before this nation is founded English just took over New York from the Dutch a decade or two before They issue the German Town Quaker petition against slavery, marking the first organized protest against slavery in the colonies. Okay, it's one hundred and seventy five years before the Civil War This is what I mean by I'm saying the country has had slavery longer. than free people. I mean it is this is a old movement that I think that sometimes we like to give the past a pass where we say, oh, well, they didn't know any better or everyone was doing it. No. People knew that it was wrong and they were calling it evil and they were calling it a sin and they were calling it deplorable From the moment the system gets started, the church is calling it out quite a bit, Quakers, I mean, are known for really being sort of like The original OG abolitionists w when you think about what they were doing and how early they were doing it. but let's not be too careful about that. because there are a lot ofQuakers that are own slaves. were they were enslavers as well.. Yeah. And that iss why the abolitionist movement is so messy, right? It's so messy because it's not it's not this very no pun intended, but black and white movement where you have good people and bad people, you can't reduce any movement to sort of like heroes and villains. Yeah. But I think we like to think of it very simplistically because it helps us to get our minds around it. But I mean, there were also black people who were slaveholders. Make sense of that. So like you know it's complicated I'm right. I mean, the Quakerism thing is interesting. We've done some shows on that on the series. and one of the fundamentals of Quakerism religiously theologically is that there's that of God equally in all men and women and people in general. And that that spark is the equality aspect of this. And so it's hard to believe in that and not turn to slavery and say something's wrong here. you know, So there were a lot of Quakers who were applying those theological ideas of spiritual ideas to this thing and it does give a real fertile ground to abolitionism to take root seventeen seventy five, so now we're zipping ahead almost a century, the Pennsylvania abbolition Society is becomes the first formal anti slavery organization. It was established in Philadelphia, the Quaker City But there are non uakers on that on that board or whatever you call it. The leadership of that group is Benjamin Franklin Benjamin Rush. Non Quakers. This movement is expanding It really starts to happen in the mid seventeen hundreds, doesn't it Yes, absolutely. and Philadelphia Pennsylvania will say it large becomes the sort of groundzero for thinking about the contestation of slavery. And part of this is because especially as the country becomes the United States and becomes more of its own identity Pennsylvania geographically is situated in this interesting place where it is The north But it's right up against the south. You know, you've got Maryland that's slave holding, you've got Delaware that's slave holding. you've got all of these other states around it that are slave holding states. And it's really trying to l And so a lot of the major like legal statutes that you will see that push abolitionist ideas come out of Philadelphia and Pennsylvania. And so And if you are an enslaved person in the south and you can get to Pennsylvania, you know, you could get to a safe haven to a place that might be sympathetic to your humanity Yeah, it's your first stop for a major Northern city There it is. And it was also a major capital at that point in time. It's a it's a hotbed of social progress progressiveness in terms of the Quakers right from the get go alsoso lots of thinking is happening in the ennlightenment aspect of this. you know, all those ideals are being applied and that's the revolutionary aspect of this, which is all the stew that's changing things and the likes of a Benjamin Franklin, who I take great pride in were the ones who were able to sort of wrap themselves around a new world brilliantly. And then obviously, like this has to change. Are you kidding me? Yeah And that's calling the hypocrisy. Yeah, exactly. And especially when you've written these things down on paper, you know, and proudly proclaimed yourself as a new nation based on these principles, suddenly it's sort of screamingly obvious. But you're right to call that out, which is like We still want to consign this to the comfortable place of, o, you know, these are ancient times. you know, people weren't used to these new ideas. No, they were very used to these ideas. Yes. Anybody with a brain, certainly an educated brain was considering the hypocrisy and very, very criminal aspect of this in terms of ideals. It was just that it was so deeply embedded. and that's what abolitionists really have to go. They're like dentists, you know, they have to go in there and say this tooth has to come out. sorry you know and that It's to the point where even Abigail Adams, the wife of John Adams, says, how is it that the loudest yelps for freedom come from that of slaveholders? And she was you know accurately pointing out this duality where it's like, wait a second, you're writing about how you the King of England is oppressing you and you know no taxation without representation. and you're talking about all of these ideas of freedom, liberty, equality, the age of revolution, this enlightenment period where people are thinking deeply about what does it mean Be free. what does it mean to sort of perate with autonomy and yet, you know, you're waving the whip in the lash and you are holding people in bondage and you are preventing them from experiencing their own liberty and and you are creating laws that will pererpetuate enslavement for generations to come. So a lot of people don't realize that common law, English, common law, everything went through the father. You know, if your father died, you were left sort of penniless if he did not hand something down to you. everything went through the father. But in slavery, they created laws where everything goes through the mother. So it's the idea that Mothers, baby, fathers, maybe. And so if you want to ensure that enslaved people stay enslaved And you create a law that says, well, if your mother was a slave, then you were a slave Because we can't necessarily tell parentage through the father then you have this machine that allows you to keep slavery going and going and going, putting everything through do really the womoms of bllack women. So it's hypocrisy that knows no bounds. Yeah. How the decisions made in Great Britain? banning the transatlantic enslavement trade. how did that affect and begin to give spark to the abolition movement in America Oh, that's a really good question. I point everything back to Haiti Sanderming was a French colony in the Caribbean They start their own revolution, which becomes the Haitian Revolution, which leads to Haiti becoming the first sort of independent black nation in the Western hemisphere. And that sparks in the United States, throughout the Caribbean, throughout South America, Europe, you name it, people start to think, whoa, this is a problem because I believe about forty percent of enslaved people on the island of Haiti were African born. And so instead of saying, slavery is wrong, they were like, well, maybe we should just end the trade. right? Like maybe we shouldn't get African born slaves anymore. And so Great Britain really through the sort of inspiration or maybe you should say terror of the Haitian Revolution, starts to say, okay, let's close the slave trade down. We're going to give people a year. We're going to announce it in eighteen oh six. We're going to make it official in eighteen oh seven. But it does a couple things in the United States one People now have this urgency about, well, if the slave trade is closing, we need to get as many bodies over here as possible. And so the slave trade does really ramp up in those last years. And then people are starting to think about, okay, well maybe at the turn of the nineteenth century in the early eighteen hundreds People start to think, maybe slavery is just gonna die. Maybe slavery is just gonna to fade out and that's going to be the end of it. And then we will maybe send black folks back to Africa or we will sort of come up with some other way of dealing with the negro question But one of the ways that question is answered is through technology and the expansion of the cotton gin and cotton being this new cash crop that does not allow people to relinquish their ability to let go of slavery because it's so, so lucrative. And so in some ways, the slave trade closes, but in other ways, the domestic slave trade in the United States expands because and this is also because the Asian Revolution France is in a pickle. It needs to pay off its debts. And so it says to Thomas Jefferson, hey, we have all this French territory, You want to buy it for bargain. And Thomas Jefferson is credited with like, oh my gosh, he gets all this territory for a deeal. He doubles the size of the United States And that purchase really makes slavery enable to expand westward in ways that would not have happened H not all these other factors been on the table? That Western expansion thing, my goodness, it just affects everything, doesn't it? Yes. Oh my gosh, you to talk about Native American removal. I mean, it's all connected. It's all connected. Exactly, exactly. But I really am one of those guilty of thinking of the Louisiana purchase in that fifth grade way that I. You know It's just like that. I'm surprised how many people don't, I don't think you're an anomaly. I think That's how I was taught the Louisiana purchase was Tomer Stefferson got a great deal, you know, And we don't think, no, no, no, Haiti kicked France' butt. France is broke, France meets France needs to pay its debts and That's how it chose to do it. All of which and thank you for indulging me in this whole first chapter here because I was really trying to get you back to your original point, which is that the abolitionist movement begins to sort of take off in the eighteen thirties The movement shifts to a more Universal immediate emancipation idea Yes. William Lloyd Garrison is the name you've mentioned He begins publishing at this point, a radical paper. the liiberator in Boston Where does William Lloyd Garrison get off doing this? Where did he come from? and what? I mean, William Lloyd Garrison is Prob a white guy first of all. wh guy White guy from New England I actually got to see the house he was born in New Berryport, Massachusetts. It's still standing and you can go see it But he is this fervent believer in Christianity, in his faith. He believes that slavery is wrong. He actually is Arentices is a print maker and starts publishing like our early abolitionist paper, but it wasn't as radical as what Garrison comes up with. The idea for Garrison is that no slavery has to be immediate. It can't be this sort of gradual, okay, we'll phase it out into apprenticeships and then go from there. He's like, no, slavery is wrong and we need to end it. and he believes that slavery is not just legally criminal, but morally problematic. so He develops his own newspaper and it really takes off. It becomes the leading abolitionist newspaper Black women and men in particular are his number one patrons. They are buying up his newspaper. They are finding out ways like, okay, how can we all be in partnership with each other where we got the same ideas like so they really support him. And Garrison talks about this as well. He's like the lifeblood of the Liberator is the Black community And it now it becomes a problem. You know, it puts Garrison's life at risk many times. He was attacked Many times people try to tar and feather him. His newspaper is banned south, all abolitionists, pamphlets, newspapers. Writings, publications are banned throughout the South for obvious reasons, you know? Yeah. But there were some enslaved people who had literacy. I know we know that slavery is made literacy illegal, but that does not mean that enslaved people weren't able to access some of these papers and read And a lot of these newspapers are also written in ways where if you had one literate person in the community, they could read it to the rest of the group. they could share these ideas Really powerful. Interesting to do a discussion about abolition in terms of the education movement in America because that has huge effects that people don't even think about because you can't spread ideas without people being able to read them in those days. And so Yes. And the first integrated schools are from the abolitionists. I mean, I think of Oberland College was famous for being like an abolitionist college. They're the first co ed, integrated interracial college that people could attend and schools, places like these were just unheard of I'll be back with more American history after this short break. bank I was literally getting pennies using Wealthfront. Ching There's this much that I'm getting in interest and I didn't have to do anything. Clients like Angela earn up to four point two percent API on their cash with the Wealthr cash account. Get started at wealthfront dot com C cllients paid one thousand dollars for their testimonial creating a conflict of interest outcesary. three point three percent base API as of january thirtieth twenty six is repented viable and earn on funds sw to program bank.er point five percent new clientoos for three months and up to one hundred fifty thousand dollars. 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They were hunting us down to kill us and now They're hunting down immigrants to deport them This is First America, the true story of how the United States came to be and how we got to this present moment. Listen to First America wherever you get your podcast. He's a gnarly guy garrison. Obviously he's got He's a bold individual. eighteen thirty three, he coounds the biracial American anti slavery Society in Philadelphia organizes a widespread campaign of public lectures, et cetera. kind of I bookend this, you know in my way between not just the Civil War obviously, but also the Fugitive sllave Act, which is eighteen fifty. You know, we're talking about a twenty year period when these ideas are making people squirm in America in a big way. you know thoseose who are able to accommodate this as something they are willing to live with certainly economically All this period from eighteen thirty to eighteen fifty is really when abolition starts to push against the American way Yeah. And that's when Frederick Douglassas comes into the picture, isn't it? Yeah, Freddther Douglas Escappe slavery. He tried multiple times to escape slavery. He from the state of Maryland He makes his way to Baltimore and eventually comes to New York and then winds up settling in New England and becomes friends with Willi Loyd Garrison and really becomes Garrison's protege in a lot of ways. I mean, he's not a child, he's an adult, but they saw a unique partnership in each other. Douglas could tell his story, he publishes his story, his own narrative, Frederick Douglas narrative becomes a national best seller. And he joins Garrison on the lecture circuit. And they go all around the country, all around the North, I should say, talking about the evs of slavery, talking about how they want immediate end to slavery and they sort of go into business together. I mean, they really become deep friends. Now their friendship is complicated. There's some fissures there. They go sort of back and forth as probably any friendship would. but Douglas is picking up what Garrison is putting down. And I think Douglas really surpasses Garrison and probably rightly so. you know, I think peopleeople wanted and needed to see the face of abolitionism as an enslaved person. What is the Dabilities movevement says nothing for us without us Garrison was like, all right. I understand that, you know, This has to be a movement that includes the enslaved themselves And also I think Garrison was conflicted because some of his tactics or his ideas about how to end slavery were not always the same as those who were formerly enslaved. You know, Garrison believed in moral suuasion and you know this idea of civil disobedience and turning the other cheek and not responding to violence with violence. And a lot of black abolitionists were like, now hold on, Garrison, listen. Like when the mob is coming to attack you, we are not turning the other cheek. We are not going morally persuade them. that slavery is wrong. And so that's kind of where Garrison and Douglas split a little bit too, where Douglas takes on a much more forceful stance. and certainly when the Civil War comes, he's out there recruiting for soldiers to fight and even send his own sons in fight in the Civil War It's in Douglas because the man's a genius that you find this this capacity unbelievable capacity to hold two ideas in his head at the same time or more. Yeah. I mean, he's basically able to see The beauty of the Declaration and those principles of liberty and equality Whilst at the same time questioning, obviously the United States ability to support this institution And that tension he plays out in his work and his his oations so amazingly for that time, I mean, amazingly anyime. we would be blocking to see Frederick Douglas today. He was that much of a modern individual, you know, it moves you to think of it. Yeah. I would say one of the most famous people of the nineteenth century. He's certainly the most photographed person of the nineteenth century. And gorgeous a gorgeous man on top of it all. striking So for all those reasons, It is an astonishing time in eighteen fifty two when he makes this famous famous Fourth of July speech Can you tell me about that Oh man, so this beach iconic. That is the best way to sort of describe it. It's a long speech too. you know Back in the nineteenth century, people were outside giving these long one hour, two hour speeches. But but he could hold What a this guy? He could hold the audience. onene. What else did you have to do? I mean, it's not like The time was sort of a little bit different back then, but you would show up to this rally to this event and you would be enthralled. You would hold on to Douglas's every word. He knew how to give a speech. He was very charismatic. He knew how to tell a story, kn how lure the crowd into what he was saying and notot just because he was so eloquent and sort of charismatic, but he lived a life as an enslaved person. He wasn't someone who was from the outside sort of saying like, I've studied this and I think it's wrong. He's like, no, I've lived these experiences. I can tell you about what it means to mother to be separated from child to have these, you know violent whippings to get into a physical altercation with my overseer. I mean, theseese are things that Douglas could talk about firsthand. but also because Douglas had literacy and he was so well read and such a scholar of the day He could also like hone in on these ideas that were pushed in the enlightenment, liberty and equality and humanity. and he could touch on it in a way that just resonated with people of all backgrounds. The address is called What to a slave is the Fourth of July, which of course, everyone should be reading this year It is this dress that was made to the Ladies Anti slavery Society in Rochester, New York And he was basically taking up the position that white Americans were not living up to their own ideals. And that's why I mentioned he was able to hold this idea. But I'm curious, I mean, in your work and your scholarship I'm sure you have sat and said How did this man What world did he see beyond the one that he was living in? Like how would he have a mission to complete When this is a brand new idea You know, David Blight, who is one of the most famous biographers of Frederick Douglas, calls him the prorophet of freedom. And I think this word prophet is so interesting because a prophet is someone who sort of sees into the future, sees past the current moment that they're in and can sort of predict or calculate or make these very specific predictions about what is going to happen. Douglas could do that. He could look at the past, the present and even aspects of the future. and say, this is what this is. and this is what it's going to be if you don't change if you don't repent, if you don't get right, if you don't, you know live up to these ideas And time and time again, you could read his speech today, like right now. And you could say, oh my gosh, someone could give this speech right here in America and it would still resonate. it would still feel relevant. And I think that's because he fully understood the problem He fully understood how slaveholders thought and how they operated, how black people thought and operated. He understood how the abolitionist movement for all of its gifts and flaws were thinking and operating too. And he was a few steps ahead of it The only other person I can compare to Douglas is like a WEB de Bys prolific writers can't write a bad sentence, you know? I just so ful But even WBs at least he has hope at this point. L the civil W is behind us. You know, you talk about Douglas and all that's ahead and it's incredible. But that's what's so interesting to put him in the context of two hundred fifty is so fascinating because This country was not even one hundred years old and it had based itself on this frontier idea that there was this world beyond what we were used to And so Douglas is very much in the tradition of that. Of course, he's fighting against, you know horrors that are happening, but hes he's very much in that American spirit of like, let's try something new here, people. know what's wrong. Let's fix it And let's be inclusive. I mean, he's not just advocating for enslaved people. He's pushing for women's rights. He's pushing for immigrants to have rights. Exact. He cares about poverty. you know, he cares about every person that is oppressed and marginalized. He is their champion And and that's why I think he's so ahead of his time In this abolitionist movement, you have all the seeds of what will become the progressive era of America. Yes. in the turn of the nineteenth to twentieth century. All of those things are happening throughout the nineteenth century because of abolition, the engine of change that comes from these people We have a list of folks, so I want to move us expeditiously along here, Harriet Tubman, another individual in this movement A whole different story than Douglas. She's a woman of action, isn't she? Yes. Oh my gosh, Harry Tubman. I mean, I know it sounds so cliche to be like Douglas and Tubman, but they are there is a reason their names like cannot be said without mentioning the nineteenth century is because they're so central. Harriet Tubman is brilliant. She's someone who's navigating a traumatic brain injury. When she is, you know, a child, she's struck in the head with a metal iron that she gets hit in the head with She suffers greatly, and yet she has all of this courage and all of this know how to be able to navigate the terrain, to be able to get enslaved people to freedom. She takes multiple trips back and forth from the north into the south, rescuing people, saving people She acts as a scout during the Civil War and is, you know, giving intel to the union and, you know, helping enslaved people, one of the largest groups of enslaved people get free over eight hundred people. She leads into freedom during the civil War. She pushes for women's rights, you know, like she's pushing for the rights of the elderly, like she is doing and she lives a long time. I mean, she dies in like nineteen thirteen or something like she lives into the twentieth century, which is incredible to me. But she has all of these highs and lows all while maintaining her illiteracy, she never learns to read or write. And this woman is brilliant, unquestionably brilliant. so I think of her a lot when I think of The founding of this country, when I think about America two hundred fifty, when I think about who are the people that were really pushing America to be better, to be better for all people. It's Douglas and it's Tubman. Yeah. mean courage You say eight hundred people, I mean, that's not at once. I mean, she does this dozens of times. Yeah. She marches through those those woods and takes that chance so many times to bring this and that group of people up and move this whole thing along. That's why I say Woman of action. It's amazing. William Wilberforce is a name that always can I don't know much about this person Where does he stand in the hole Pantheon here Bber F, I always think of Wberf University. And like one of the things that the abolitionists were known for, I think, and this is like I don't want to get too off topic, but like when I think of the abolitionist movement, it is not just a movement to end slavery, although that is like It is an idea to improve the lives of so many people through education, through like these sort of mutual aid societies where people are trying to aid and help one another as best as they possibly can. And Wilberforce is on the front lines of that trying to get as many resources and help to people who are experiencing slavery, who are experiencing extreme oppression and puts really his money, his efforts, his life where his mouth is and does that day in and day out. He represents so many of these great leaders, white great leaders that I think intricately understood that more was needed than just Indian slavery, that you had to be able to create a space where black people could navigate their equality, that they could have citizenship, that they could have education, that they could become fully functioning members of society with all the rights and protections that that required. So I think of Bobaforce up there with Garrison. I think of him up there with Charles Sumner. I think of him as one of these leading abolitionists that understood early how wrong this institution was I'll be back with more American history after this short break bank I was literally getting pennies using Wealthfront. Ching There's this much that I'm getting in interest and I didn't have to do anything. Clients like Angela earn up to four point two percent API on their cash with the Wealthfront cash account. Get started at wealthfront dot com C cllients paid one thousand dollars for their testimonial creating a conflict of interest outcesary. three point three percent base API as of january thirtieth twenty six is representative viable and earn on funds swept to program bank. point five percent new clients whoose for three months and up to one hundred fifty thousand dollars. Directposit one thousand dollars a month funded invest account for a point five percent increase Cash account offered by Wealthfont brokerage LLC member Fin IC not a hundred and fifty years ago They were hunting us down to kill us and now They're hunting down immigrants to deport them This is First America, the true story of how the United States came to be and how we got to this present moment Listen to First America wherever you get your podcast. I don't even have Sumner on this list and that's how Sumner you got to have Charles Summer. mean he's I mean we could go on and on. And I just wanted to mention Sojournner Truth, you know, who's so famously speaking you know, she loves Soj great order about slavery and equality for women. Again, this is the begin in women's rights. onene of the first I would say one of the earliest Feminist would be Sjourna Tuth, hands down. I mean, she's speaking out against women's rights long before Susan B. Anthony, long before Elizabeth Caty Stattin, She's going to these conventions And we should say all these people know each other too, like Sedruna Tuth, Harry Tumming, Douglas, you know, Garrison, they're all within the same spaces and they are all working together to push multiple platforms. And what I think is so interesting about Black abolitionists in particular is that It's again, not just a movement to end slavery. it's about equality. Like slavery. end slavery is the first step A lot of people were like, No, we have to go beyond that, which is why you don't just have the thirteenth Amendment. You have the fourteenth, You have the fifteenth because you have to not just free the enslaved, you have to give them citizenship. You have to enfranchise them. You have to give them the right to vote. That doesn't extend to women at the time, but that's what people were pushing for. wanted as many rights and protections as possible and they're pushing for that. Yeah, right. Well, we're talking about a two hundred year movement as well that goes on forever. I mean right to the present day, of course. Yes. But that's the perspective that is so fascinating Often I mentioned these shows that were doing about two hundred fifty and people assume I'm talking about the founding fathers, you know, that kind of time period. And there are many in a in this country who think that two hundred fifty should be that. discussion only and exclusively and I think no, no, no It's where do those seeds go? How does this grow And how does it confront these things so boldly and bravely? And I'm so proud of that part of this country's history the good part of it in terms of its's healing. It's fascating. but in this in the context of make America great, like really great not in a smoy kind of way, but people who are working to make America live up to its creeds. I see those leaders As part of the founding mothers and fathers of this country, anyone who was wororking for that. Yeah. I mean, it gets me quite in the heart There are so many regular folks, you know, bllack activists who are doing the hard work in those offices and keeping the thing going and building it arranging work stoppages property damages Armed revolt is planned. Black freedom struggles have always involved a refusal to acknowledge the dehumanization, the inequality, the racial oppression. You make a living at studying this kind of resistance. Yeah How do you set that in the American story Is it what we were just saying pretty much? or is there an even greater vision seen by those who embrace this So I tell people very broadly that I study the lived experiences of Black people, which feels very big and broad. But I see Black American history in particular as a history of refusal. And when I say refusal, I mean black people are refusing ill treatment. They're refusing slavery. they're refusing human indignities and the way refusal manifests itself is like multifold. I mean, there's so many different ways in which we see black people working for freedom, never just for themselves, always for the collective, always for everyone. And that to me is what's so inspiring about studying Back resistance is that it's not this isolated, you get mine, I'm gonna get yours, you know, like or I'm gonna get mine, you get yours kind of attitude that we see how One of the greatest antidotes to White supremacy is solidarity and how black people are so good at creating coalitions with white Americans, with Native Americans, with Asian Americans, with poor white people, like finding common ground that allows everyone to live free and live well. And so studying these people Yeah, it inspires me in a ways that makes me think about, okay, well, how in my own moment If I were living then, but I'm living now, what would I be doing that would help sort of further the cause? And I mean, being a writer, being a professor, being someone who's like, I have to tell the story. I am a storyteller. And the best way I can do that is through the pen Well, I mean, the pen was the most powerful thing that abolitionists had, not just the printed word on the page, but being able to spread information and awareness about things that were wrong to call it out. I think that's one of the greatest tools that we have Now it can be used in both directions. You know what I mean? Propaganda is also us is a thing. But I just I cannot relinquish my just appreciation for people that were doing the work in the face of insurmountable odds. If you had told someone in eighteen thirty one You know, slavery is going to be over soon. Nobody would believe that. Slavery was going to be forever. It was the most prorofitable lucrative thing. I mean, we kind of treat people like that when we say, you know, o, AI is not going to last or you know, the internet's not gonna to really be a thing. It's gonna to end. You know, like we can't imagine a world without the internet. We can't imagine a lot of people can't imagine a world without AI or what the future will look like. but like These things aren't permanent. Nothing is permanent. All the change that we see comes through activism, comes through people challenging, comes through people pushing to make things different or better. And so I want to be able to think like that as well, to be optimistic Do it still astonish you? it does to me. when you consider how entrenched this was and also given how much been articulated so brilliantly by the likes of Douglas and the rest In that twenty year period, eighteen well, thirty, really eighteen thirties to eighteen sixty, that there would be a war fought over this. I would have thought given the economic benefits of slavery. when you didn't have to be guilty of being an enslaver. You would sort of let it giveive it a pass, you know, if you're in the North and say, okay, you guys have your nation, We'll do ourselves and we'll be friends like that. Instead, the most incredible war happens that is agonizing. Yeah. It just astonishes me that. and again part of the two hundred fifty story because wow, this nation was willing to go to the mat over this whole thing and come out the other side more hopefully. Yeah. Not easily, but hopefully I think of black abolitionists in particular who said And I'm paraphrasing, but sort of summarizing their beliefs that Because slavery starts in violence and slavery is sustained through violence slavery would only be overthrown with violence. that that we should not be surprised by a civil war, that These ideas of white supremacy are so addictive and so Attractive that people would literally be willing to put their lives on the line to maintain their power, to maintain their wealth, to maintain their authority that that should not surprise us that people were willing to shed blood. What boggles my mind is how I understand how you get slaveholders to fight for slavery. That makes complete sense for me, right? They're protecting their assets, their wealth, their identity But how do you get white Northerners to do that too? To say no This is wrong. You can get sure, I understand how you get black soldiers to fight. You know what I mean? Like that makes sense to me, but to be able to get the country of the union to say, no, this is wrong. Well backack to your original point that you made earlier about the fact that many of those people thought it would just fade, including Abraham Lincoln. Oh yeah. you know, let's trap this in the south. Let's not let it go out west And, you know, those lands are fallow. They're not producing as much as they used to. Eventually it'll just peter out because free labor as, you know which is the sort of industrialized labor force being paid will take over as a system. That was the notion. And black people will just send them back to Africa. Literally like Abraham Lincoln is like, he's got a colonization scheme. He's like, y'all, can we just send you back? And Douglas is like, No, we built this country. We are Americans. We are not going back to Africa. like. I mean, the American abolitionist society pushes colonization schemes for a long time. they don't have great success, but people could not imagine a nation with free black people all over the country, like like sure, maybe in the north, but like they couldn't imagine that in the South and what that would entail. And so ye. I do think that you have these visionaries who are able to Iagine something more. And what I also think is incredible about the abolitionist is that they're only one percent of the population, one percent. You know it's not all the north. The North is mostly in different apathetic or even in support of slavery because they work in a textile factory or because they are benefiting from slavery directly or indirectly in some way. You're talking about a small faction of people that were seen as fanatics, that were seen as radicals that we're not waiting on consensus. You know, they weren't like, well, we need a majority to vote to like or we need to get everybody on board. It's like, no is wrong and we're going to force this institution. whether you like it or not And and they're that's meazingy Yeah, and not cynical. cynical. not cynical at all. That's what's amazing to me as a tremendous cynic. person raised by Cynics I know cynicism. and it's not a productive way to think. It doesn't change a thing.. You sit down on yourself and you surround yourself with your fellow cynics. and nothing shifts Black people in America from the get go have known that better than anyone and have carried forth an uncyynical attitude to today that says yeah, there's a lot We're pissed off about and we're willing to take measures against that. and it said, but we're not willing to be cynical because that will not change anything No it won't. I mean, I am a rose colored glasses glass heful optimistic future forward person, that's just how I am, but I think it's because You know, the future doesn't exist yet. and so like we know what the past is, we know what the present is. But the future could be anything, which means that we have the ability to shape it, to mold it to sort of conjured into being. and that for me is really exciting to think of like could be possible. You know, if you had told someone in seventeen seventy six, you know, we're gonna go to the moon. We're going to go to the mooon. We're going to land on the No one like how? You didn't even have airplanes. How could you go to the moon? Like that is just, you know, impossible But like that is what I think is so limiting about like racism and sexism is that when you cap