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The Negro youth of the land recites the Gettysburg speech, and it is right that he should do so; but does he know Douglass’ “What to the Slave is the… - Alice Dunbar Nelson
" "The Negro youth of the land recites the Gettysburg speech, and it is right that he should do so; but does he know Douglass’ “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?” The Negro youth of the land admires Lincoln’s Second Inaugural address, but does he know Douglass’ splendid tribute to the man who wrote the Second Inaugural address, when the freedmen of this country erected the Lincoln monument at Washington? The Negro youth rolls over his tongue the witty epigrams of the mighty Lincoln, but has he been made familiar with some of the pithy aphorisms of his own Douglass?
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About Alice Dunbar Nelson
Alice Dunbar Nelson (July 19, 1875 – September 18, 1935) was an American poet, journalist, and political activist. Among the first generation born free in the South after the Civil War, she was one of the prominent African Americans involved in the artistic flourishing of the Harlem Renaissance. Her first husband was the poet Paul Laurence Dunbar. After his death, she married physician Henry A. Callis; and, lastly, was married to Robert J. Nelson, a poet and civil rights activist. She achieved prominence as a poet, author of short stories and dramas, newspaper columnist, activist for women's rights, and editor of two anthologies.
Also Known As
Birth Name:
Alice Moore
Alternative Names:
Alice Moore Dunbar-Nelson
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Alice Ruth Moore
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Alice Ruth Moore Dunbar-Nelson
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Alice Dunbar
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Alice Ruth Dunbar-Nelson
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Additional quotes by Alice Dunbar Nelson
who knew and understood them as human beings, and not as beasts, the slavery trade was, as he expressed it, “the open sore of Africa.” Over and again he voiced his belief that the Negro freeman was a hundred time more valuable than the slave. He repeatedly enjoined those who had the fitting out of his expeditions not to send him slaves to accompany him on his journeys, but freemen, as they were more trustworthy. He voiced the fundamental truth that he who is his own master is he who obeys and believes in his master. The slave trade in Africa was dealt its death-blow by Dr. Livingstone.
Yet how many Negro youths in the land know as much of the ideal of Negro manhood, Frederick Douglass? If Lincoln is the American idol, so is Douglass the Negro’s idol. If Lincoln’s was a romance of life, with its toilsome youth culminating in a splendid manhood, attaining the highest gift which the nation could be stow, how much more is Douglass’ life a romance? The slave, beaten, starved, stripped, fleeing from slavery at the most deadly peril, to become in his later manhood the guest of nobles and kings, the cynosure of the nation’s eyes, the friend of this same Lincoln, the great man of the century? If Lincoln’s utterances are inspiring, calling in clarion notes for right and justice and truth, so much more are Douglass’ inspiring to us, calling for manhood and strength and power. For he was no soft-tongued apologist,/He spoke straightforward, fearlessly, uncowed;/The sunlight of his truth dispelled the mist,/And set in bold relief each dark-hued cloud;/To sin and crime he gave their proper hue,/And hurled at evil what was evil’s due.
But Frederick Douglass, whom we honor equally, has not yet had the full meed of his praise, and we celebrate the passing of his natal day with a finer appreciation of what he has done for us, and of what his life will mean, not only to the men who were his contemporaries, nor yet to us of a later generation, but to the race of the future; to the children yet unborn. History has not yet given him his rightful place on its pages, but the history of. tomorrow will place him where he should be — with the courageous, the wise, the far-seeing. It remains for us, his own people, to pour out at his altar the incense he deserves, the praise he merits; to let his life be a beacon to light us to that higher, truer patriotism — the fearlessness of real manhood.
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