"It is all a Thing of the Past": An Interview with Frederick Douglass, 1886

2018 ◽  
Vol 51 (2) ◽  
pp. 81-93
Author(s):  
Hannah-Rose Murray
Keyword(s):  
Frederick Douglass ◽  
The Past

Longing, Nostalgia, and Golden Age Politics: The American Jeremiad and the Power of the Past

2009 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 125-141 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew R. Murphy
Keyword(s):  
Golden Age ◽  
Political Rhetoric ◽  
The United States ◽  
Abraham Lincoln ◽  
Frederick Douglass ◽  
Political Life ◽  
The Past ◽  
American Tradition ◽  
Political Ideal ◽  
American Society

I assess several politically powerful ways of drawing on the past in the search for solutions to problems in the present. To probe these dynamics, I turn to the American jeremiad, a longstanding form of political rhetoric that explicitly invokes the past and laments the nation's falling-away from its virtuous foundations. I begin by focusing on the Christian Right's traditionalist jeremiad, which offers both nostalgic and Golden Age rhetoric in its assessment of the United States' imperiled national promise. I argue that, despite differences in the historical location of their ideals and the significant rhetorical power that they bring to political life, such nostalgic and Golden Age narratives represent a constraining political ideal, one ultimately incapable of doing justice to an increasingly diverse American society. I argue furthermore that there is another strand of the American jeremiad and conclude by sketching a different way of drawing on the past, a progressive jeremiad epitomized by the thought of Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass. Such a jeremiad is also deeply rooted in the American tradition and offers a far more promising contribution to a diverse and pluralistic American future.

scholarly journals Rebirth of a Nation: Frederick Douglass as Postwar Founder in Life and Times

2005 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
pp. 19-39 ◽  
Author(s):  
EDWARD TANG
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
African Americans ◽  
Frederick Douglass ◽  
Washington Dc ◽  
Vital Importance ◽  
The Past ◽  
Colored People ◽  
White Resistance ◽  
The Moment ◽  
Centennial Celebrations

In 1875, a year from the upcoming centennial celebrations, Frederick Douglass commemorated the African American presence in the nation's revolutionary past and Reconstruction present. “If … any man should ask me what colored people have to do with the Fourth of July, my answer is ready,” he proclaimed to a black audience in Washington, DC. “Colored people have had something to do with almost everything of vital importance in the life and progress of this great country” from its beginnings in 1776 to its greatest test in 1861 and beyond. Douglass drew upon the Revolution's legacies of liberty and democracy, urging his listeners to meet the challenge of incorporating themselves into the nation's citizenry despite sustained white resistance. Albeit a tall order, he placed this agenda in a broader perspective: “The fathers of this Republic … had their trial ninety-nine years ago. The colored citizens of this Republic are about to have their trial now.” The moment was full of possibilities: African Americans, he emphasized, faced comparable obstacles and hardships much like the founders themselves. Implied too within Douglass's invocation of the revolutionaries was the potential heroism and accomplishments of which African Americans were similarly capable, just as they had proven in the past.

Interview with Sir Geoff Palmer

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kalfou editors
Keyword(s):  
Meaningful Work ◽  
Frederick Douglass ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Past ◽  
Diverse Society

Kalfou: What is the meaningful work that acts of historical commemoration can perform in the present? Palmer: The plaque to Frederick Douglass in Edinburgh and the slavery plaque at Glasgow University are important because they reflect the conclusion that although we cannot change the past, we can change cruel consequences, such as racism, for the better.  These plaques also tell us that truthful narratives on plaques inform the public of a history which says that although we are different, we have the same humanity. A diverse society requires diverse attention to be efficient and fair. A fairness which changes the evil of “go home” to the goodness of “come home.”

The Shadows of the Past and the Work of the Future: Frederick Douglass's Temporal Theory of Democracy

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-23
Author(s):  
Nathan Pippenger
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
African Americans ◽  
Democratic Theory ◽  
The United States ◽  
Frederick Douglass ◽  
The Past ◽  
Temporal Continuity ◽  
The Future ◽  
Theory Of Democracy ◽  
Specific Orientation

Abstract Throughout his career, Frederick Douglass linked the achievement of an egalitarian, multiracial democracy to Americans’ perception of their collective past and future. In so doing, I argue, Douglass developed a distinctive, temporal account of democratic peoplehood. For Douglass, temporal continuity lent force and content to demands for equality—demands which would succeed only if the whole demos cultivated a specific orientation to its collective past, present, and future. Douglass offers a productive contrast to contemporary democratic theory, which often misses the importance of temporality suggested by his account and thereby risks surrendering its powerful egalitarian resources. Moreover, temporality provides a new lens on what many interpreters see as an episode of inconsistency in Douglass's thought: his brief, quickly abandoned contemplation of colonization proposals in the spring of 1861. Ultimately, Douglass turned to temporality in order to decide whether democracy for African Americans required affiliation with, or disaffiliation from, the United States.

Putting Down the Steady Pen for the Natural World

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ka’mal McClarin ◽  
Mike Antonioni
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Social Movements ◽  
Natural Environment ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Frederick Douglass ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Global Understanding

Much of the scholarship on Frederick Douglass in the past twenty years has focused on his public contributions to society at large: numerous comprehensive biographical treatments detail his interactions with political, religious, civil, and social movements. However, there has been little discussion of his interactions with the natural world. This article explores Douglass as a man of many seasons who demonstrated over the course of his life many passions, nature being among the most prominent. Along with Douglass’s staunch commitment as a universal reformer, we argue, Douglass carried a lifelong love for the environment, engaging with it physically, intellectually, and as a source of leisure. By the time of his death, he had become a Victorian gentleman farmer and a naturalist who possessed a global understanding of his natural environment. In fact, he often merged his appreciation for nature with his broad range of activism. These actions worked in harmony with one another. This aspect of his life was an equally important aspect of his character as a man who came of age during the nineteenth century and whose soul departed from the earth on the eve of the twentieth century.

Observations of the continuum near the galactic centre

1967 ◽  
Vol 31 ◽  
pp. 405
Author(s):  
F. J. Kerr
Keyword(s):  
Galactic Centre ◽  
The Past ◽  
Centre Region ◽  
The Continuum

A continuum survey of the galactic-centre region has been carried out at Parkes at 20 cm wavelength over the areal11= 355° to 5°,b11= -3° to +3° (Kerr and Sinclair 1966, 1967). This is a larger region than has been covered in such surveys in the past. The observations were done as declination scans.

The Origin of the Moon and its Relationship to the Origin of the Solar System

1962 ◽  
Vol 14 ◽  
pp. 133-148 ◽  
Author(s):  
Harold C. Urey
Keyword(s):  
Solar System ◽  
The Moon ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Short Period ◽  
Origin Of The Moon

During the last 10 years, the writer has presented evidence indicating that the Moon was captured by the Earth and that the large collisions with its surface occurred within a surprisingly short period of time. These observations have been a continuous preoccupation during the past years and some explanation that seemed physically possible and reasonably probable has been sought.

On The Possibility of an Autonomous History of Modern Southeast Asia

1961 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 73-105 ◽  
Author(s):  
John R. W. Small
Keyword(s):  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Contemporary History ◽  
The Past ◽  
History Of

It is generally accepted that history is an element of culture and the historian a member of society, thus, in Croce's aphorism, that the only true history is contemporary history. It follows from this that when there occur great changes in the contemporary scene, there must also be great changes in historiography, that the vision not merely of the present but also of the past must change.

Stellar Evolution

1962 ◽  
Vol 11 (02) ◽  
pp. 137-143
Author(s):  
M. Schwarzschild
Keyword(s):  
Solar System ◽  
Stellar Evolution ◽  
Space Craft ◽  
New Techniques ◽  
Substantial Body ◽  
Individual Stars ◽  
The Past ◽  
Evolution Of Galaxies ◽  
History Of ◽  
Fast Flow

It is perhaps one of the most important characteristics of the past decade in astronomy that the evolution of some major classes of astronomical objects has become accessible to detailed research. The theory of the evolution of individual stars has developed into a substantial body of quantitative investigations. The evolution of galaxies, particularly of our own, has clearly become a subject for serious research. Even the history of the solar system, this close-by intriguing puzzle, may soon make the transition from being a subject of speculation to being a subject of detailed study in view of the fast flow of new data obtained with new techniques, including space-craft.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document