Frederick Douglass in New Bedford

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ARE YE A SLAVE FOR LIFE?





Mr. Douglass thus once harnessed flicks the leather reins clicks his tongue the old red horse leans into the sweat stained straps buckles soaked leather stable smell carriage wheels steel rimmed horses nickering iron furnace shoes hard on cobbles laid tight by freemen rows running on and on Union Street Water Street Market Street Purchase Street ropey welts on his back not long ago raised they are cruel coarse weavings raptors laying their nests on his shoulders with nothing like feathery grass or feathers themselves woven rather with finger width sticks of scarred flesh split and congealed bicep branches the lash the cowhide clotted lash braille like that blind fingers could trace and sense the outrage with a shiver they speak to him now as the winter touches them through his coarse shirt Talbot County Miles River memories heat remembered now on Water Street those whips written like a cruel preface now he shovels glaciers of snow pounding leagues of rope chinking out the light that leaks through the plank gaps endless gaps of brown oak tar incensed waterfront smell of hot pine stench of blubber smoke wharf stained sailors smudged and tattooed the question was asked the question is asked the question will be asked are ye a slave for life the son precedes the father the question rings hangs a note discordant in the church air are we slaves for life the words clot like blood in his throat sounds of the whip the siren cries whispering from the closets of history through generations swelling in these cobbled streets plaiting the then and the now Mr. Douglas whispers to his red horse pulls the reins back on the wide streaming chest climbs down from his carriage his boots meet the cold granite which still ring under my own boots today are ye a slave for life?





inspired by...

Twentieth Annual Frederick Douglass Community Read-a-thon of the

"Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave Written by Himself (1845)"

Sunday, February 9, 2020

First Unitarian Church

Newe Bedford, Massachusetts

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Photos

New Bedford waterfront
'I found employment, the third day after my arrival, in stowing a sloop. I was now my own master. It was a happy moment, the rapture of which can be understood only by those who have been slaves." F.D

Father reading from The Narrative
"The louder she screamed the harder he whipped; and where the blood ran fastest, there he whipped longest." F.D.

Son reading from The Narrative
"'Are ye a slave for life?' I told him that I was. [The Irishmen] said it was a shame to hold me [and] advised me to run away to the north…and from that day I resolved to run away."

Reader inside First Unitarian Church
'A great many times have we poor creatures been nearly perishing with hunger, when food in abundance lay mouldering in the safe and smoke house." F.D.

New Bedford Whaling Museum
"I assert most unhesitatingly, that the religion of the south is a mere covering for the most horrid crimes, a justifier of the most appalling barbarity." F.D.

New Bedford architecture
"The warm defender of the sacredness of the family relation is the same that scatters whole families." F.D.