This past weekend marked the anniversary of the death of one of the most pivotal figures in American History—Frederick Douglass. He was a former slave, abolitionist, orator, journalist, women’s rights activist, ambassador, and crucial influencer of America’s most celebrated leaders, Abraham Lincoln. Both men’s passion for moral truth was fueled by their faith in God, which translated into their persistent pursuit of justice. Before the Emancipation Proclamation was declared over a violently feuding nation, President Lincoln emancipated all slaves within the District of Columbia first. On April 16th, 1862, the most heinous human injustice known to our young country was abolished in the nation's capital.
Twenty one years later, the inimitable Douglass, an extraordinary human being who was conceived in rape, eloquently commemorated Lincoln's actions. Of his friend he said: “Among the great names which should never be forgotten on occasions like this, there is one which should never be spoken but with reverence, gratitude and affection, the one man of all the millions of our countrymen to whom we are more indebted for a United Nation and for American liberty than to any other, and that name is Abraham Lincoln, the greatest statesman that ever presided over the destinies of this Republic.”
Perhaps this is why Democrats seize every opportunity to proclaim how Lincoln—the Republican—is their favorite President, yet, ironically, stand by a party platform that betrays Lincoln’s foundational principle that “we’re all created equal”. You can’t be the Party of Abortion, celebrating the most violent discrimination, and praise a leader who gave his life to ensure human equality for all.
Douglass asks in his speech to the Congregational Church in Washington, D.C., on April 23rd, 1883: “How stands the negro today? What are the relations subsisting between him and the powerful people among whom he lives, moves, and has his being? What is the outlook, and what is his probable future?”
Indeed. Where stands the black community, today, in America? Does it stand with the corrupt Hillary Clintons of the world who celebrate the likes of anti-human eugenicist Margaret Sanger? Does it stand with the Democrat party that demands the most violent form of injustice and calls it “reproductive freedom”? Does it stand with the NAACP (aka the National Association for the Abortion of Colored People) that decries voter suppression but supports the daily killing of 1,000 would-be black voters in abortion mills nationwide? Does it stand with a fundamentally dishonest hashtag movement, #BlackLivesMatter, that pretends today’s American society is more racist than 150 years ago? Does it stand with Planned Parenthood who is the leading killer of unarmed black lives today?
The answers to all of these are sadly, and overwhelmingly, yes.
But not all do. There is a remnant that knows the difference between being empowered and being fooled by those in power. We have taken up the mantle of our predecessors. Slavery abolitionists, whose cause was righteous, were demonized by lawmakers and the press, and were hated because they dared to fight for human dignity...for Truth. Frederick Douglass and many other passionate abolitionists did not risk their reputations and their very lives to see their posterity flushed down drains, thrown in medical waste bags, or sold off to the highest “fetal tissue” bidder. Black people, in this country, have been through too much blood and tears to be willingly re-enslaved by a self-destructive mentality that profits today's abortion industry plantations.
“The moral government of the universe is on our side, and co-operates, with all honest efforts, to lift up the down-trodden and oppressed in all lands, whether the oppressed be white or black,” declared Douglass. His remarks are prescient. “Unification for us is life: separation is death. We cannot afford to set up for ourselves a separate political party, or adopt for ourselves a political creed apart from the rest of our fellow citizens,” warned Douglass who praised both his black and white brothers and sisters who fought for justice and equality. This is why when I hear mantras like “No Justice! No Peace!” I really want to hear, “No Just Us! No Peace!” We all have a vested interest in equality—black, white and every hue in between. Fighting for justice is a human effort, not divided by “race”, ethnicity or racially-divisive hashtags.
One of Douglass’ most prescient comments during this powerful speech reminds us of the continual battle for the Fundamental Right to Life: “But it is idle, utterly idle to dream of peace anywhere in this world, while any part of the human family are the victims of marked injustice and oppression.” The unborn are the most victimized, the most oppressed, and the most slaughtered in our society. Of all the places on earth that should be at peace, the womb has become the target of violence and political unrest creating casualties far beyond the numbers Douglass or Lincoln had witnessed in their day. However, they didn't have the death and destruction that slavery caused sanitized as we have had the injustice of abortion made antiseptic, hidden behind closed doors, plastered in pink signage, and praised by politicians who wouldn't dare even show what this act of violence actually is.
Frederick Douglass’ legacy is not merely an historic relic; his words should continue to provoke us to this moral cause of human equality. His life, which defied the evil and inhumanity of slavery, flourished to become a testimony that, together, we can do the impossible. He once said: “One and God make a majority”. That’s the only side worth being on.