Thanks to this history, and to Douglass’ own varied and prolific writings, critics of the 1619 Project find a convenient friend in the 19th century’s foremost thinker on the Black experience in America.Īn example: In his 1852 speech “ What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?”-probably his most famous speech-Douglass refers to the Constitution as a “GLORIOUS LIBERTY DOCUMENT.” Critics from across the political spectrum often use this phrase as a rejoinder to 1619 Project lead Nikole Hannah-Jones, or to the alleged “woke” movement more generally. Constitution but eventually came to interpret and present it as an anti-slavery document he famously broke with his abolitionist friend William Lloyd Garrison over the question of how best to conceive of the founding text. The orator and activist who escaped slavery and went on to lead the abolitionist cause initially condemned the U.S. One common move in the turn against the 1619 Project (and against what many now refer to as “wokeness”) is to invoke the words and person of Frederick Douglass. Then came President Trump’s 1776 Report, intended as an official rebuttal of the 1619 Project, and then the growing momentum behind state-level efforts to control public education on race. It began, unforgettably, with the January 6 insurrection, where a mob hurling racist taunts at beleaguered Capitol police officers rioted with impunity only months after peaceful Black Lives Matter protestors were met with overwhelming displays of force. If 2019 was the year of the 1619 Project and 2020 was a year of racial reckoning in the streets, then 2021 proved to be the year of conservative backlash. “ The Assassination and Its Lessons,” Brooklyn Academy of Music, 1866 Wherever freedom has an advocate, or humanity a friend, his name will be held as an auxiliary. A thousand years hence, when the solid marble that held his remains shall have crumbled when hundreds of military heroes who have risen under his administration shall have been forgotten when even the details of the late tremendous war shall have faded from the pages of history, and the war itself shall seem but as a speck up the long vista of ages, then Abraham Lincoln, like dear old John Brown, will find eloquent tongues to rehearse his history, and commend his philanthropy and virtues as a standard to the rulers of nations.
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