Author Calls for Return to Martin Luther King Jr. and Frederick Douglass’ Vision of Colorblindness

Not a bad idea! Amen!

MLK in 1963: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by their character." (Source)

I wrote some critical blog posts about MLK here, here, and here.

"Martin Luther King Jr. and Frederick Douglass were both dedicated to bringing about an America that was colorblind, Andre Archie says, but their work is being undermined. 

“When I say colorblind, it’s not naive at all,” says Archie, an author and professor at Colorado State University. “It speaks to a tradition that we find with MLK, with Frederick Douglass, with the Founders, right, in principle. We also find it in the Western philosophical tradition; so, my goal is to rehabilitate that.”  ..."

Returning to MLK's Vision of a Colorblind America

Frederick Douglass’ Other Fourth of July Speech Is Particularly Timely in 2021

Recommendable!

Why are leftist ideologues and their mouthpieces or minions much more interested in celebrating and deifying a professional and repeat criminal and drug addict (Hint: Last name Floyd) and other, similar characters instead of Frederick Douglas and Booker T. Washington?

"... If, however, any man should ask me what colored people have to do with the Fourth of July, my answer is ready. Colored people have had something to do with almost everything of vital importance in this great country … We have been with [the white man] in times of peace and in times of war and at all times. We were with him in the hardest hours of the Revolutions of 1776. ..."

Douglass’ Other Fourth of July Speech Is Particularly Timely in 2021

Frederick Douglass’ Incredible Legacy Told by Laurence Fishburne

Let's not forget: "When Douglass was about twelve, Hugh Auld's [slave owner's] wife Sophia started teaching him the alphabet. From the day he arrived, she saw to it that Douglass was properly fed and clothed, and that he slept in a bed with sheets and a blanket. Douglass described her as a kind and tender-hearted woman, who treated him "as she supposed one human being ought to treat another". Hugh Auld disapproved of the tutoring, feeling that literacy would encourage slaves to desire freedom; Douglass later referred to this as the "first decidedly antislavery lecture" he had ever heard. Under her husband's influence, Sophia came to believe that education and slavery were incompatible and one day snatched a newspaper away from Douglass.[28] She stopped teaching him altogether and hid all potential reading materials, including her Bible, from him." (Source)

Prager University: Frederick Douglass: From Slave to Statesman

Very recommendable! The video is way too short to do justice to Frederick Douglas!


(15) Frederick Douglass: From Slave to Statesman - YouTube

Ideology Of Racism In The U.S.: Octavius Catto

Posted: 1/18/2014

Trigger

The Mann Center in Philadelphia is having a special event on Octavius Catto titled “Octavius Catto Story: A Philadelphia Freedom Fighter” in February - April, 2014.

Some Remarks

Sources:

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octavius_Catto

2. http://ojs.libraries.psu.edu/index.php/phj/article/view/23956/23725 (“Nineteenth Century Philadelphia Black Militant: Octavius V. Catto (1839-1871)” by Harry C. Silcox published by  Pennsylvania History vol. 44, no. 1, January 1977)

I do not intend to discuss here Catto’s involvement with equal rights or why he is celebrated today as a “civil rights pioneer”.

Octavius is quite a classical Roman name. Wonder how he got it and what it meant?

His father was a slave, but was freed.

His mother is said to be a “a member of Charleston's prominent free mixed-race DeReef family” (1). Here it becomes interesting. If you search for her family will come across a letter to the editor of the New York Times dating from 1907 discussing people of color owning slaves like the DeReef. Or read more about this on this blog post.

He was a student at the Institute for Colored Youth, which was founded by a Quaker philanthropist (most likely a white man, although there appears to be no picture of this man or any hint as to his skin color), who was born on a plantation in the West Indies. Quakers (a predominantly white society) ran the institute.

“In 1853 his family moved to Allentown, New Jersey where, by the influence of

ex-Governor William A. Newell, Octavius gained admission to that

city's white academy.” (2).

“Following the 1867 season, Catto, with support by players from the white Athletic Base Ball Club, applied for the Pythians' [Pythian Base Ball Club] admission into the newly formed Pennsylvania Base Ball Association.” (2). Is it not surprising to learn that as early as 1867, white athletes tried to promote black athletes.

About his murder in 1871 on election day we learn in (1) that he was owning or even carrying a gun. “On Chestnut Street [Philadelphia, PA] he was again accosted by some white ruffians, who pointed a pistol at him, threatening his life if he went to vote. Catto went to a near-by store and purchased a pistol. When a friend reminded him that he had no cartridges, he replied that he had some at home.” (2) Thanks to the 2nd Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. This is another example that black Americans used guns to defend themselves.

We also learn in (1) that in those days, black Americans voted for Republicans. “Catto's military experience made him an ardent and confirmed Republican.” (2).

“Possessor of a combative and aggressive nature, Catto was linked with every important black movement of the day.” (2) How combative and aggressive was this guy? He did not fight in the Civil War, but he recruited other black man for the Union army.

Was Catto possibly a racist himself? “Catto "did not wish to turn his back on the fact that the colored man was the best teacher for colored children [since] he had long been of the belief that no white man could so well instruct colored children as could a colored teacher." He credited the latter's success to a clear recognition by

all blacks that black teachers "had the welfare of the race more at heart, knowing that they rose or fell together... ."" … ether... ."" Catto's amendment

read: "In the appointment of teachers for these schools, colored persons, their literary qualifications being sufficient, should receive the preference, not by reason of their complection, but because they are better qualified by conventional circumstances outside of the school-house."' … Complaints in the black newspaper The Christian Recorder also advanced Catto's position and illustrated his ability to speak for his people in racial matters. It constrains us more than ever to adhere to our motto of "Colored teachers for colored schools," and further that those white teachers take no real interest in their work nor of the scholars but teach and tolerate them only in order to enable them to draw the money they receive at the end of each month.35” (2)

Source (2) concludes: “Could the mentality of submission, as symbolized by Booker T. Washington, have had its beginnings in the violence and suppression of the urban North and not in the rural South? Catto's life and death give credence to just

such a hypothesis.” Wow! Was Booker T. Washington indeed submissive or is this not a very condescending remark? The author of source (2) seems to be a fan of W. E. B. DuBois about whom could be said a lot too.

Previous, Related Blog Posts

Here, here, here, and here.