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Freedom: The Unfinished Struggle
A decades-long struggle brought freedom for slaves in America. But the struggle
for freedom from slavery is not over.
by Wayne Dunlap
That night in Nantucket was charged
with expectation for several hundred townspeople gathered on Aug. 16, 1841, for a
meeting of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society.
Caucasians and Negroes alike met for the antislavery cause. Prominent Quakers and
other religious leaders joined the audience, along with the people of Guinea, the
black section of town. They met in the Big Shop, a building on the edge of the city
used for crafting whaling boats.
City officials had withdrawn permission for use of the elegant Atheneum meeting house
for which the event was originally scheduled. They were uneasy about the expected
presence of antislavery agitators--and especially queasy about the guest speaker,
an escaped slave named Frederick Douglass.
The house was packed. Some of the more agile attendees mounted the 12-by-12-foot
rafters and lofts, legs dangling, impatiently waiting for William Lloyd Garrison,
founder of the New England Anti-Slavery Society, to wrap up the opening business.
The young guest speaker grew restless as the moment neared for his first major public
address.
The audience grew still in anticipation as Douglass was introduced. Then he spoke
with electrifying eloquence, telling the story of slavery from raw experience. He
referred to his scar-covered back and to his own blood pouring out under the fury
of the lash.
His story transfixed the audience. Douglass described from his own experience slavery's
impact on the minds and bodies of its victims. He was living proof that many of the
horrifying reports regarding slavery were true.
From that night forward, Douglass dedicated his life to exposing the degradation
bred by slavery and to ending the nightmare for millions of men, women and children
held in bondage in America.
Turning the Tide Against Slavery
Douglass and other former slaves were successful in driving home slavery's cruelty.
White abolitionists like Garrison and Theodore Dwight Weld could speak against slavery
as observers, but Douglass and his fellow escaped slaves spoke from personal experience
of their suffering.
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