Transcripts For CSPAN2 Lydia 20240705

Her scholarship was on the 19th century german philosopher hegel. She has two books on gwf hegel. Tonight shall be speaking on her new book with many, many many accolades. I recommend you take a look at them but also take a a look at r website to see the meaningful statements that talk about her contributions to scholarship. The book was published in the fall off 2022. There been a few biographies but none i know im editorializing. Then as a fresh and timely as this one scholarship of a woman who really should get much more attention and who came here. Tonight we welcome professor lydia mullin, thank you. [applause] thank you so much. Thank you for being here. Thank you especially to tina for that lovely introduction into meg who was one of the people who invited me and help to facilitate all of this. I should say that when i first launched into this project i was such an exciting and new world for me. And when i discovered tina know so much had done so much to honor her legacy here and curate things some of which are on display tonight it was electrifying to me. The first cent i came through i couldnt believe what i was seeing. The things they wrote and touched and lived with. So you will see in the back there there are two precious items. One is a flower book she made she was a very talented drawer. She loved flowers. This is something ill come back to in my remarks later so when you be sure to say that. She sketched a whole book of flowers on included poetry and famous people writing about flowers and she was collecting for a daughter who never arrives. She finally n decided to go to a niece. Theres a very touching letter she writes that says i spent many years of my life loving flowers, drawing flowers, reading about flowers otter never arrived i went in to have it she says to her knees. The other i also love. I want to talk about for a second im going to read some passages that includes things about her father. One of the other objects back there is a bible that he gave to her the inscription on it says Lydia Francis, presented as a reward due to merit. And proof of a parental affection. [laughter] i just adore that as evidence of a personality and of a relationship which was not always an easy relationship. He lived a very long life and she took care of him in his old age and i love that token of his respect for her merits on her affection has survived here. All of that to say at such an honor for me to be here amongst those objects and also amongst all of you who live in the very place where she was born. I teach at kobe college and waterville maine which is just a couple of miles some of you will know to spent some of her teenage years. After her mother died when she was 12 years old she was sent to live with a sister that had married someone and moved to maine. That was in part it was very clear that her father was not up to single parenting very precocious teenage girl. And so it yesterday as i was leaving kobe college i thought this is amazing. I am leaving this place where she came from medford going back to medford to give this a top that felt like synergy. That takes a long time to get herere but not as long as it did when they make in the voyages of very young. As a 12yearold. I often wonder what that trip was like for you. To give her an arc of her life. Iwh want to read a couple passas that when she was here and what she would have experienced and then im going to talk about and read a passage from the middle of her life and about her conversion to abolitionism and if we have time like to close with the passages later in her life. I think what happening everywhere but in medford perhaps especially as we know she is famous for one thing, not inclined to mention the name of this poem, not yet anyway. That was a poem for children and we put her in a box of childrens literature or we dont think of her as having gone be on that but wasnt early in earnest love of writing for children. That is in theas context of a vy full life and a life that had controversy and pain and dedication to trying to address Racial Injustice in this country this book isna personal to me. I came to writing about child at a moment in my own life thought it was important for me to figure out what my duties were regards to my country but it means to be an american citizen and a now. What that asks of us i am a philosopher. I teach moral philosophy so i come to child life with very Big Questions about moral philosophy and about how i should live my life. In one of the reviews my book got recently the reviewer said somethinghe like when ever you read you feel like you have to change your life. This is what happened to me very literally. Im giving in this arc to give you a sense of what her story has meant to me as a moral philosopher but also someone is trying to think hard about what my obligations are to my country. So what i wantgo to do again is set the stage of what medford was like for her what kind of child she was when shehe lived here and then i will move on to theen moment she engages with te abolitionism which is the cause that shaped her life the most. So she was born it 1802 of going to pick up a few years later. As her world began to take shape around her little Lydia Francis began to recognize her immediate family. In addition to her parents there were four older children. Other semblance to probably sibe came into focus first. Almost seven when she was born, one baby had died between the birth. He seems to have taken being displaced by a younger child a well hemorrhaging early in this Little Sisters memories as affectionate and attentive even as other family members were perhaps too busy to pay mind to her. Their father had by now fought his way out of poverty with the systemem of apprenticeship and d at long last become a prosperous baker. He was famous his medford cracker a buttery, crunchy, laborintensive biscuits were sold throughout the northeast exported in large quantities to england. The family lived in a twostory house across the street from a thelocal cemetery. Not far from here. Where at least one ancestral was buried. Next to their house was a bakery, a sign hanging in front for passersby to seat. Having overcome his own humble origins he cant hit her father was in a position to be generous with those still fighting for a place in american prosperity and he was. The night before thanksgiving humble friends of the house in the washer woman, the barrett woman, and the apprentice bakers were summons to the francis residence for a dinner with the chicken pies, pumpkin pies and heaps of donuts. I was a model of liberality she never forgot. Then on thanksgiving day itself, the francis family apparently went over the river and through the woods to their grandfathers houseey were there were cousins and pumpkinin pie. She turned into a verse putting medford on the map not as the birthplace of one of americas fiercestst reformers, but as inspiring one of its most sentimental poems. There is still a river and medford. There are no woods. What impression of slavery did she have as she grew . Her father, one source reported detested slavery with all of its apologists in all its forms. This may have been because the witness its effects in medford itself. A 10 minute walk from the francis home over the same river and a bit further to the woods was an elegant residence known as penn hills farm. Where his father, a native new englander on the slave trade. When the family returned they move to medford brought the humans and slay with them. Royal had close ties to britain and fled the country on the eve of the revolution. The mansion remained as did the twostory building where his slaves had lived within earshot with their masters voice. Art almost no record of what became of his slaves after he fled. Remarkable. Known is one of the woman left behind later successfully petition the massachusetts government for payment from the royal estate and compensation for a lifetime of forced labor. Clear evidence of black americans understood what justice for all entitled them to avon at the Founding Fathers themselves would never see it that way. But the rest, did they say in medford . Did Lydia Francis see them in town and heard them talk about their past . Did her father point out the farm to his children recounting the shameful history of the money that built it . If you did, she never mentioned the francis residence and bakery no longer exists because they were then but the royal mansion still does. So do it slave quarters are the only remaining example of their kind north of the masondixon line. Th there is industry of slavery that they mustve known as well at theme turnofthecentury a different medford family had owned about 20 slaves. One that named caesar was sold to eight medford native who has lived in the south. When he took himself and then returned to medford to visit some years later, he brought caesar with him. Caesar had experienced slavery and the south and did not want to go back. With some encouragement from locals he attempted to flee but was quickly caught, bound and imprisoned on a southern bound ship. But in the commotion of his capture he had managed to alert sympathetic bystanders to his plights. Before the ship could sail as allies appealed to the governor of massachusetts himself to make use of new laws to obtain his freedom. This was exactly the kind of story that enraged southern politicians. The north a complaint had agreed to assist in returning adjective slaves as part of the constitution. That in massachusetts and other states have passed laws providing the kinds of loopholes that allowed him to go free with evidence that northerners had no intention of abiding by their pledge. As a girl Lydia Francis would not have known about the legal technicalities but she surely sd have known of caesar who a local store and reported subsequently work his trade and medford several years with the Early Childhood memory that Lydia Francis recorded was a celebration that marked the end of thee, International Slave tre that date was commemorated annually by a parade led by black bostonians. As an adult she still remembered how viciously their celebrations were caricatures by newspapers. The farm for these and other incidents lydia of fashion and impression of slavery that was both complex and limited. She knew slavery had recently existed in her own world. She knew it existed elsewhere. She knew some people were trying to end it. Some to escape it and some to prevent it. And some to preserve it. But its come in or developing a young mind is still felt very distant, still abstract, still like nothing that could affect her life very much. Though im sorry let me finish a little bit on this. Her early years there. The official education and medford was somewhat limited, Lydia Francis had an advantage over other children. She had an older brother who loved books. In her earliest memories of congress he was never without one in his pocket poring over it at every moment of leisure. Then there it was his little sister watching him with adoring attention as only Little Sisters can, what was he doing . What book was that . What did those words mean . Perhaps congress obliged by recounting stories from novels the local teacher lent him. Perhaps he spun tales from history books pose questions fraised by a recent foray into baptist theology. Perhaps theiron parents were jut as happy when congress got the youngest child out from under underfoot by reading to her. Soon she was s reading to him. Soon she was reading everything in s sight. Congress was probably the first person to notice his younger sister was extremely bright. And so it kind of secret society was born next door to medfords famous bakery. When i came home from school i always hurried to his bedroom and threw myself down among his pile of books lydia recounted years later. For any text beyond her childless comprehension she had a ready tutor converse what does shakespeare mean byis this . What does milton be by that . She remembered asking. From all indication converse loved it. Her curiosity and admiration mustve been a welcome relief from their parents to judge mental frugality. He was patient with this little pupil only occasionally giving way to the universal tendency of older brothers as she put it to bamboozle the youngest sisters with that information. Until lydia was called down to help hang the wet laundry or he was needed to roll out the next batch of crackers they existed blissfully in a little world of our own to which no one about us entered. It was a small vision of heaven. A recollection of those hours together his sister wrote after his death is sufficient to fill me with gratitude to god for the gift of such a brother. Such development as my mind has attained i attribute to the impulse thats given by his example and sympathy. So the story goes on. Converse was so bookish this young bakers son was so bookish they family dr. Finally said to his father hes going to be of no used to you in the bakery you might as will sentence a harvard. [laughter] and so they did he enrolled at harvard and went on to be a theology professor at harvard. He is also an amazing child is a very auspicious and impressive oppressivehistory as a scholar. It was soon after that that i said earlier that their mother died in lydia was sent to live with a sister in maine. But when she returned to boston to live with her brother again she had turned from a prodigious reader into a prodigious writer. By the time she was 22 years old she had already published very successful novel. As european settler native American Warrior she was into butters literary circles she was celebrated by george pick nor she got to meet lafayette when he was att the governors bowl. She quickly followed that novel with another one. She started writing stories for children. She startedd editing one of the first periodicals for children called the juvenile miscellany which was a wonderful concoction of stories wrote poems and riddles and games. It was quickly popular up and down the east coast for their records as children waiting for it to appear i know what that noise is paid the juvenile miscellany must haveso come. Very early publication. There had been anything like that published for americans yet. And then in 1829 she published what she referred to as the american frugal housewife. I love the subtitle of this book which is dedicated to those who are not ashamed. Its definitely an indication she was growing impatient with the boston high society worrying about Table Service and linens and beautiful dresses. She had begun already to feel that was not the world she wanted to be a in. This was an amazing book. It makes great reading even now its full of recipes about bread and stuffing a goose and how to treat a sprained ankle. The treasure beer at the family table the water was not trustworthy. And at sold out multiple times since very early years and went through Something Like 30 i went outy the time of print and it was the kind of things people remembered all the way intooo their adulthood. And they could launch her career as a housewife without this book. By the time she was 30 she is the equivalent of a household name in the United States. Beloved both for her novelistic abilities but also for her ability toho give household tips and to write for children. Ubso there are wonderful accolas published about her all the way through her late 20s and early 30s. Also around that time she married someone named David Lee Childs was a former freedom fighter. He had gone to europe and gotten involved in some conflicts there always on the side of justice. He was a lawyer part he was an editor he was a publisher and he was a financial disaster. He was the kind of person who always had fabulous ideas that would immediately involve a borrowing money. You will hear it very quickly what im about to read it was very soon after they got married they were in a lot of debts and then in 1830 shes already become famous in these ways she met a man named William Lloyd garrison. Some of you will know he was probably the most white abolitionists in the boston area specifically moved to boston to build on the foundation that have been laid by black abolitionists like david walker and Mariah Stewart and the paul family. Hr theres a thriving group of black abolitionists that met at the african meetinghouse right behind the statehouse. And so garrison moved here with thene idea to start a newspapere would call the liberator and to try to convert white bostonians to abolitionism. It is so important for us to remember that to be an abolitionist at that point in history was to be a radical. Most white northerners more very comfortable at the existence of slavery. Many who opposed it for various reasons still did not think it should be abolished. They may be thought it should end it gradually or there should be time limits on its. Our only certain kinds of people should be enslaved there are very few people who thought it should be immediately and without compensation to enslavers. You can imagine people would say thats not going to work. The economy is going to collapse. What is going to happen to a 3 Million People been enslaved there suddenly emancipated, world they live, how will they eats, all of these questions seemed insurmountable to average white northerner. Had become an abolitionist who noou longer thought there should be a gradualism about ending slavery at a all. He came to boston to try to convert others. As been very good books published recently that make the point very clearly to be an abolitionist even to be a radicalte like that to think slavery should end immediately did not mean you believe in racial equality. There are many white many whites that thought slavery should end but that did not think that the and their descendents were their equals. They still did not want black americans in their churches or in their schools or in their public transportation. There was a lot of violence in the north in the 1830s as abolitionists became more vocal, people felt very threatened by their message not only of abolition but in some cases racial equality. Once she converted to abolitionism did embrace the idea of racial equality. Which made her even more radical among her peers. So, i want to pick up again a little bit with what happened to her and she met garrison. So garrison came to boston looking for recruits. Looking for people who could help spread the gospel of abolition. A new look childs work. He had praised her as possessing a genius as versatile as a brilliant and being equal and wit and wisdom to Benjamin Franklin himself. He knew she was a talented novelist with a bent toward social justice and issue is issuescapable of giving readers practical advice on how to change their lives. Maybe she would write for him first you need to become an abolitionist. Soon after arriving in boston she propose they meet. Decades later child still remembered garrisons effect. I was all absorbed in poetry and painting shein wrote soaring alt into the regions garrison got hold of the strings of my conscience but might have been if id never met him old dreams vanished Old Associates departed all became knew i could not otherwise, so help me god. At that point he does describe as a conversion experience whos left with the question of what to do. Any of us in this room have had a conversion experience whether some other we know can fill up ending. Erosionre cant live your life e same way anymore but how should you and what should you do to attack whatever monstrous evil you have been convincing to take more seriously . One of things i admire most is i think she just sat down and took inventory of her talents and her capabilities and her skills undecided from then on she was going to dedicate all of those to this cause so here is a little bit of how i imagined how that went. How she asked yourself could she take on site monstrous multifaceted evil the best minds ever fledgling country had failed . David, her husband at least most of the time had his journal on his legal practice. Garrison had his liberator. Samuel mae, a fellow convert and administer had his pulpit. What did shed have . Child took stock of her talents and abilities. At some point during her research she settled on the idea book. A book that would disseminate facts, dismantle arguments to make it impossible for her readers to live the same way again. Soon it became clear what child in particular as an author had to offer the cause. Her reputation she had established herself as a reliable opponent but aspirational advice. Her readersfr knew her to be frk butio compassionate. But what they trust or through a transition from housecleaning tips to abolishing slavery . Where they follow her from treating dysentery to curing the disease at her country score . I imagine at her Kitchen Table searching for her books first sentences. Perhaps she thought again the powerful men she passed every day from the streets men whose argument she knew from his power powers she no longer feared. Reader, i beseech you not to throw down this volume quests initiativeve glanced at the tite she wrote. Her handwriting graceful and even. Read it if your prejudice will allow for the very truths sake. She thought of the women who cooked from her recipes and read her stories to her children. If i have the most trifling claims on your goodwill for an hours amusement yourself or benefit to your children she wrote, read it for my sake. I imagine her looking around or four go home and turning back to her paper, read it she wrote from sheer curiosity to see what a woman who had a better attend to household concerns will say upon such a subject. So what did that woman say . You are going to have to read the book to get the answers to that question. But what came out of that was a book called an appeal in favor of that class of americans called africans. Which is a fire hose of historical, political and intellectual reasoning every kind of excuse people used to keep them from caring about slavery and that the last chapter begins Something Like while we bestow our earnest on our brethren in the south, let us not flatter ourselves that we are any better than they. And then she went on to attack northern racism. As you can imagine this is not what your average bostonian wanted to hear. Probably not in medford either. [laughter] or going to pick up again talk a little bit about as the book is being published. In 1833 made her way to the city. With her she carried a manuscript titled in the appeal in favor of that class of americans called africans. As they laid out her text and inserted her images what she was risking became ever clearer. He was attacking her nations economy threatening the unity and defying religious leaders she was calling her politicians hypocrites and her neighbors racist. Was exacerbated by the fact the author was a woman did she wondered if shed gone too far surpass the pessimistic predictions. Describe the child as a lady of whom society was exceedingly proud before she published the appeal and whom society has been extremely contemptuous ever since. The politicians ands tradesmen presumed to criticize women had better let politics alone. One probably refused to read the appeal it feared it would make him abolitionist. [laughter] another through the book out the window with a pair of tongs but must have hurt the most was a juvenile from whiched child was forced from 1834 after angry parents canceled subscriptions in droves is now dyer that reputation that save them. They got worse before they got better. Anti abolitionist moms were from pennsylvania to maine the child would find yourself shielding abolitionist speakers dispiriting them across the city and hiding them in safe houses we should know that she or her husband would make it of mine to keep them solvent. Would not be the greatest challenges to her conversion. She could not have known this but the end of slavery was still 30 years away. Now think like delayed in chains. Failure and discouragement get in the way. Never living the same way again with the challenge of her life i imagine gentle boston dinner party are asked awkward questions about the book. He answers as bestie can. He returns home to the vast library now among the largest in Greater Boston had he gone wrong this is just perrys has worried what harm had he unleashed on the world by letting milton and shakespeare he wrote her a letter i will be so she concedes examine the slave to thoroughly and fell his wrongs too deeply to be prudent in the worldly sense of the term she wrote. I imagine him reading the letter and closing his eyes, head in his hand. I imagine cheerful children being told they will no longer be receiving the juvenile miscellany since her beloved editor had turned out to be a dangerous radical. But while they are less tolerant parents were not looking, trust and perhaps too easily the author had been done. I well remember an early reader of the miscellany right to child decades later the zeal with which it was circulated by a little group of schoolgirl abolitionists of which i have the honor to be one. We could only imagine what rippling effect the schoolgirls had on their society as they grew to adulthood and raise children of their own. Other affects a childs effort we do not need to conjecture. Thomas Wentworth Higginson one of the finances of john browns a blood he abolitionist insurrections 25 years later gave it child credit for his youthful conversion to antislavery work. Massachusetts senator Charles Sumner cited child influence in starting him down the road a passionate abolitionism that would lead decades later to him being beaten unconscious on the senate floor. And what of the proud bostonian who refused to read the appeal fearing it would make him abolitionist . He was a respected minister whose income depended on keeping his wealthy congregation happy. His wife and daughter had been converted by childs arguments. I imagine them emboldened by the appeal female author. I envision the minister herod by antislavery arguments as he sits at dinner pursued by evidence of racial equality as he tries to escape to his bedchamber. How many more people among bostons Polite Society said at dinner parties hearing their house rave at the audacity wondering to themselves whether she was right . Im on the outrage parents who canceled their subscriptions to the juvenile miscellany how many had second thoughts . We will never know and child never did either but people do not throw ineffective books out the window with tongs. Im going to skip forward then quite a bit given the time. In the intervening years, child reallyhi tried everything you could possibly imagine to try to undermine slavery. So, and one of my favorite episodes they moved to northampton, massachusetts to farm sugar beets and an attempt to undermine the plantations sugarcane trade it was an agricultural activism. That unfortunately was a failure and they wentt bankrupt at the end of that but its another example of someone trying everything to fight for what they believe in. As i mentioned in the passage there were a lot of mobs in the 1830s she and david were involved in those mobs and in manye cases the women would surround the abolitionist speaker who was under attack and shepherd him forward because they correctly assumed people would beck less likely to attack women. So there was a real physical bravery there as well preach she also continued to write. What are my favorite episodes after john browns raid in virginia she got into a war of words with the governor of virginia both his letter to her and her reply and his reply in her letter in someone elses letter in her letter were all published in the press and then published as a tract and theres 300,000 copies sold her to 19th century equivalent of going viral. She was the kind of person who knew how to articulate arguments and to seize thehe moment that upset people really paying attention that she could then issue all of these arguments she had been honing for 25 years in a way that really got peoples attention. During the war she helped raise money for the union army. But only after lincoln finally stopped using Union Soldiers too return fugitive slaves to their enslavers. As long as that was going off with nothing to support this war after it ended that she threw herself into war efforts. In partnk because something i think a lot about in again trying to imagine what, as a White American was trying to think about the way i should live my life. The kinds of lessons i want to learn also from her example. Not only of what she got right and what he think she got wrong. Later episode in her life. How it relates to activism today. This is towards the ends of a war as it went into effect there were indeed millions who are essentially refugees. So they had no income, they had no possessions just to enable them to live the life they had been promised for each child as usual is full of ideas how to fix this. Not how to assist in that and then she decided to do she compile the freedmans book and that was a book that would help newly emancipated black americans learn to read essentially. Tt i want to reach youbo a little t about what the book was like a. In some of the questions it raises toward the end of the war. She would create a primer for newly emancipated americans learn to read. She was not the primer should learn from as a girl he had biographies of famous africans and pages she would show the freed people that others like them had been inventors, poets, scientists, politicians and military leaders. As they read the stories, spelling out one word after another they would learn the fas that would raise their hopes and arm them against prejudice. The more she thought about the idea, the more she liked it. Soon she was resolving my poor brain into a committee of ways and means to figure out how to publish it at her own expense. She began compiling the books chapters. Harriet jacobs who some of you know publish incidents in the life of a slave girl agreed to contribute. Frederick douglass granted child permission to tell his story however she saw fit. She rewrote some of the biographical sketches of black heroes that she had included in her appeal 30 years ago. An easier language for early readers. She included africans resisting the slave trade in fugitive slaves daring escape to assure her readers they had other allies she includedis authors le garrison and john greenlee. Perhaps most important she quoted Frederick Douglass eloquence outrage for poet and orator lyrical exploitations and agonizing poetry of an enslaved demand name mingo written to his wife before bloodhounds tore him apart as he tried to flee. Black americans would make clear that recognize the atrocities done to them articulated them and sought them they had not beenen helpless submissive or ignorance. In the table of contents, child made of black authors accomplishments visible by putting it star needs to each of their names. Compared with other primers. Gridfor similar purposes, was oe again brazenly progressive. By contrast, other readers made no effort to cultivate pride in african culture or enslaved peoples resistance. By comparison childs was as one historian has put it, rare indeed. Nd but, despite all of the passionate good intentions i have come to think the essay she wrote herself in the book has among her most problematic publications this is because encouraging freed people by honorable examples of men of their own color was not child only payment. She had to others and they should give us pause the first of these acknowledged to a friend was to convey moral instruction in a simple attractive format. This did not mean a discussion of the 10 commandments it also differs from other primers by the total aspects of theology. Instead of moral instruction to her meant cultivating theng habs of respectability were then as always cornerstones of the world view. How to patch worn close, whitewashed houses talk to children plant gardens that make the poorest cabin look beautiful. Why all this holy advice . Because quite simply the state of slaves everywhere depended upon it. Spanish colonies child reminded her reader, people were still enslaved. If you are vicious, lazy and perilous she wanted them their masters would continue to hold them in bondage by saying look at the freed men of the United States. What i dont vagabond they are held look how dirty their cabins are out slovenly they are addressed this proof they cannot take care of themselves that they are not fit to be free. But the reverse child promised her leader was also true. If your houses look a neat in yr clothes are clean and whole in your gardens well pleaded then all the world will cry out you see they can take care of themselves its a sin and a shame to keep such men in slavery. Simple cleanliness in short and everyone could win. By being respectable, black americans could improve their own lot and that of others. She meant it as encouragement but she also knew better. Childhood shown herself throughout her life to be intensely aware of the poisonous reach of Rachel Rachel president s. She did the simple equation act respectably and you will be respected was a false just as often as it was true. And the same essay she admitted as much. For a good while it will provoke many of your former masters to see those who were once their thereslaves asking like freemene wrote. They will do many things to vex and discourage you. This as she well knew was a wrenching understatements. What was the psychological cost of asking emancipated black americans to believe this would work . How could such a demand not at a crushing psychological burden to an already desperate struggle for physical survival . Looking over a 50 year career in a public eye this is one of the lessons i find most searing. White americans like myself must stop combining private agony about Racial Injustice with the desperation to convince its victims that it doesnt exist. The second a problematic ames was and she also wrote to a friend to inspire her readers with forgiving feelings for their own masters and some chapter she did include references to kidnapping and flogging and children sold at auction blocks she sometimes presented a notably sanitized version of events. Childs desire to promote forgiveness raises a more philosophical question. What is the value of forgiveness without repentance . Given the chance those who had enslaved black americans would likely re enslave every one of them. What in these circumstances did it mean to forgive and what does it do to victims of atrocity to be encouraged to forgive when the perpetrators are eager to reoffend . Pi one more episode is worth recounting here. The letter to Frederick Douglass asking permission to use his story in the freedman book does not survive. Hisa reply to her suggests a question she apparently raised. Child it seemed had read somewhere douglass had reconciled with his former and slaver thomas auld, was this true . Note douglass replied it was not. The store of an interview between us is a newspaper story foray which i am in no way responsible he wrote spirit any such meeting could not fail to be awkward he continued. But then he seems to reconsider. Still, i should bem, glad to see him especially if i could do so simply by meeting him halfway he wrote. Then again maybe not. I do not he continued fancy at making a journey to see a man who gave me so many reasons for wishing the greatest distance between us. Yet again he reconsidered. I learned from my sister who still lives near master thomas he says he would be glad to see me he wrote. Then came an extraordinary promise he has about to say so to me by letter and considering his age and forgetting hisas pat i will make him a visit. What is going on in this letter . What had child written to prompt suchy vacillation by one of americas most asserted intellectuals . We will never know but heres my guess. Child had asked him if she could assure her readers newly emancipated americas most famous of fugitivee slaves had forgiven the man who enslaved him. In fact douglas didnt meet again and his last autobiography douglas gives an account of the meeting that was all child could have wished for. He first recounts everything all had done to him it is a long list. He then admits his own fame had made otherwise unremarkable life the subject of international outrage. I had by my writings made his name and deeds familiar to the world in four different languages he acknowledged. All told he did not blame him for running away. I was not quite an apology but it was close enough for douglas. In return douglass offered a defense of behavior that was generous to impossibility. I regarded him as i did myself he wrote a victim of the circumstance of birth education, law and custom. By the time of this account was published in 1881, was no longer alive to read it. If she had been surely was she would have rejoiced in this report of reconciliation. But douglas was a t lucky if we want to call it that. He d had offered douglas one of the things that makes reconciliation possible, and anadmission of harm by thehe wrongdoer. But 16 years earlier, as child d freedmans book was published most former slaves confronted the opposite. Far from acknowledging slavery is evil therefore slavers were doing everything in their power to reinstate it. Given this reality i am somehow glad douglas is reconciliation came too late for her child to use it in the freedman book. Quite simply its absence kept her from telling her readers that following douglass famous example they were expected to do the same. And then im going to end with a couple of images from hurt staff and some thoughts about that. She spent her last decade writing about reconstruction and its failure. Publisher regularly in the independent and other newspapers. Alerting readers to the existence of the ku klux klan. Trying to encourage them not to feel like the war had ended the projects there is a famous quote where she says people in wayland where she was then living would come up toad her and say arent you glad you live to see justice done to black americans . And she would say if i do live to see if justice done to black americans i will be happy. So what are fellow americans wanted to hear they had poured blood and treasure into this war they did not want to hear it had not solved the problem. She was convinced until actual Racial Justice was achieved slavery would always reassert itself in a another form. And i fear she was right about that. The last thing she published was a book that argued for religious tolerance. There is a wonderful introduction to it that encourages people of all faiths to think of themselves as pursuing a common vision. So just a last image from the end of her life then. It is after her husband had died. When lydiaed died in wayland, massachusetts at the age of 78 her friends soon discovered she had given brutally instructions for her funeral there was to beat no grand Memorial Service in boston. No lion icing from the pulpits. No lines of curious strangers stretching past her coffin. Speakinge of coffins sheet onced she wantedthe plaintiffs when p. She also wanted no flowers. To me that isof the saddest par. Rome then tended them spread joy and beauty to friends by giving them away. But for her own memorial she wanted none. It was in short to be a very quiet and inexpensive funeral she wrote in her will a wish she warned her friends which i trust will be scrupulously observed. A few newspaper sent reporters to her modest home for the funeral was held. They were at a little disappointed the gazette judge come how strange this should be a coffin without a single silver handle and not a bouquet of flowers incites it. Surely it was not right the public was prohibited from paying their respects to an author so many had loved the boston sunday Herald Correspondent also noted the plane coffin and a lack of lacks although he appeared moved by how beautiful the deceased looked laidss out in the simple black dress and meet white cap. But all in all the gazette reporter concluded it was a peculiar funeral. Still, the locals mustve been somewhat starstruck to see Wendell Phillips and John Greenleaf arrived and entered her home. They are a small group of friends and family arrived. Philip said one of the most important orders of theen Abolitionist Movement spoke. His hand on the coffin off the woman who had almost 50 years later sent him on his lifes path. Humor of the earliest selfimposed hardship her conviction had caused her. He reminisced about the frugality that had allowed her to give so much to others. But struggle and thrift had not resulted in a dreary lifefe he assured his listeners. On the contrary for intelligence wit and love of beauty meant have bubbled up with joy. He struggled to encompass the span of her attributes. Modest, womanly simple, sincere, solid, real, to be trusted equal to affairs yet above them he said. The hand ready for fireside help and loving to wander on the edge of the actual. In his journal. Put it more simply, how we shall miss her. He wrote local farmers carried her to a grave, freshly dug to davids. The that day had mixed sun and clouds. Now as her body was lowered into the earth, a rainbow appeared to the east. On her tombstone, john were written. Davids words, you call us dead. We are not dea you call us dad. We are not dead. We are truly living now. Toward the end of her life perhaps it would simply be like falling asleep into an eternal rest. After a lifetime of struggle and sacrifice that sometimes sounded perfect. Or perhaps it would be a revelation of the truth she had always longed to understand. Was the secret of the world as she had long suspected music or perhaps geology, had plato been right that this was a world of confused shadows . Would die in dispel those and allow her to see the light . Finally, to know, to see, to understand that she often thought would be its own kind of heaven. But there was one more vision of the afterlife child sometimes imagined, and afterlife in which she could keep working. In her last letter to a friend she warned once more about her failing body. Her limbs were stiff, slow and sore, her heart bruised by disappointment. Her powers she knew were adding but surely if she could shed her mortal flesh her spirit would be free and energy renewed. I think that there is more work for me to do inan the universe d i shall enter upon it with renovated power. The first time i read this i looked up and out of the window and i wish i could say i saw a rainbow but i didnt. That doesnt mean it wasnt there. Imagine still at work in the universe inspiring, encouraging, convicting,e admonishing, urgig those of us bound by space and time to meet the challenges of our lives. All right, i thought. Lets do this. Thank you. [applause] thank you very much. I would love to take some questions but i do want to say that i have books for purchase. I schlepped them all the way from maine on public transportation. Please buy them if you would like to. If you dontth im going to thrw them in the river and, i mean, that over the river and through the woods river. If you would like to purchase one, my beloved husband would be happy to help you with that. One of the things i love doing inspired by his to use book sales as fundraisers for organizations he would have supported and so any proceeds from the book tonight im going to give in part to the Historical Society and also the slave quarters. They are usually 35. I can get a discount of 30 if youu would like to do that. Otherwise i would love to hear your questions. Again since we are being filmed if you wouldnt mind waiting for the microphone and then actually putting it up to your mouth, that would be lovely. Thank you. That was fascinating. You mentioned at the beginning this work this project had a powerful effect on you. Is that something you can speak about . Absolutely. Ive really shifted. Ive tried to look at what my strengths and skills and experience allow me to do and then to just dedicate as much to the kind of causes that she was so dedicated to and fighting for so that has caused me to reorient the way i do my finances and change the way i form my syllabus and spend my free time and the kind of organizations i try to support byan volunteering and i think is changed the way i feel about what kind of work i need to do in my own mind and heart as well and for someone to be like im very busy i have a lot of things i have to do and i dont have time to devote myself to the things that are going wrong in my society. I just learned to check that impulse and myself and ask myself how much the value of the things im busy with have and if i could give one other example one of the things i sometimes say child has inspired is a kind of moral paranoia in me because i feel like if someone could have gone through almost 30 years of her life with good intentions and in a city that considered itself progressive and not see the obvious evil of enslavement, what am i missing like whatt is it thats right n front of me that im not attentive enough to and one of the things ive become more aware of and determined to turn my attention to is the mass incarceration system in the country so it is in many ways a direct outgrowth of slavery and resembles enslavement in many ways. Whatever we think the mass incarceration system should be doing, whether its proportionately punishing people forr wrongdoing or keeping our communities safe or making People Better it seems to be failing on all of those friends and so i child to be inspired insofar as when she was first alerted to the evils of slavery the first thing she did is spend three times reading, just informing herself so i have ive definitely been doing that as a moral atrocity going on in the country many of us are not paying attention to. Thanks for your presentation. Im curious if she and david ever had children of their own. She wrote so much for other children and i am also curious about her involvement with the Womens Suffrage Movement and the connection there. They did not have children and they wanted children. Something wasnt working. Reproductive science being what it was they wouldnt have known. They certainly expected to have children and in fact i think i mentioned the book that she drew the flowers for she had hoped to give to a daughter and they never had children and that was a kind of lifelong sorrow to her. She was clear about that she didnt have children to take care of her and her older age which was an issue then as well. The womens suffrage question is such a fascinating episode of hersh life so in the 1830s she was very involved in what was a major schism in the Abolitionist Movement over the question of whether women should be allowed to speak in public. So very early radical abolitionists i feel like garrison was so far ahead of everybody on most issues but also on that one he was like of course we are not going to tell them they cant say what they are conscious to be. But as they try to attract more conservative members especially clergy, some of them grew very uncomfortable and at that point there were people like angelina and abby kelly and chapman who were electrifying female speakers and at a certain point were filling whole theaters in boston delivering this message. The clergy essentially at a certain point i hate to say that its hilarious but its sort of is, letters they wrote that essentially said do you realize womens character is being completely ruined by their involvement in this movement and if we dont send them home, the evil that will follow cannot be measured so they essentially offer the movement a deal. The clergy and the more conservativee members would jon but only if the women were sent home at which point there was a major split in the Abolitionist Movementet and the society went one way and i forget what the other people called themselves. So child really lived a painful moment of h that history and she herself did not speak in public. She was good at arguing. Theres recordsde of her destroying people, arguments on the stage but she didnt like to speak publicly. She was very clear she wanted to defend womens rights to do that. At thes same time she was alwas more comfortable advocating for others rights than her own and then much later after the war was over and people like Elizabeth Stanton and anthony were pushing for suffrage there was another terrible schism in the Womens Suffrage Movement many of you know about which is when the 15th amendment was proposed that would grant suffrage to black men but not women, people like stanton and anthony decided to oppose the amendment and they did it in viciously racist language ines some cases so they would try to scare people out of voting for the amendment by making them feel afraid of what happened. When that happened, child distanced herself entirely and allied herself with people like lucy stone and Francis Harper and other black abolitionists working for the suffragists at that point she was in her late 60s and early 70s at that point and was clear that she was tired and caring for an ailing husband so she wrote some amazing articles but wasnt as involved in it as she was in abolition. I am kind of interested in whether or not she asked for or had editors that would read her manuscripts and give her advice and i was thinking about douglas not being asked to do that. I dont know whether douglas sort of insistence on getting men to vote and not having women as part of i dont know whether it would have been an ally but he just wanted to get the vote first because he thought it would bebe too difficult for won to get the vote and for men to get the d vote so i dont know what relationship that had. Douglas himself was very early absolute supporter of womens suffrage, she was at the stanton Falls Convention and a very progressive on the question of gender and womens suffrage from very early on but it is true that later and its another terrible example of progressive groups pitted against each other so when it became clear that it was going to be one or the other and youre right people would say the public isnt ready for this, they could maybe handle black men getting the vote but not men and women. Douglas decided as did child, very clear about this that it was more important for black men to get the vote then women. She said that in part because of what was going on in the south because of the racial terrorism going on during reconstruction she said if black men dont get the vote and representatives of their own in government, there will be continued genocide essentially. So she allied herself with the position and to that point as well was that something popular . You mean like editing a newspaper . Like if people edited things for her . I actually dont know a lot about that. Ive never seen any record of people editing things for her so im not sure about that. I think the way books were produced was so different than and i dont know people kept good enough records. Maybe they did. If they did i dont have a good answer to that question. I believe she ends up going to new york. Does she work for garrison . Thats a great question. Im doing the audiobook now and i was recording the chapter which that question becomes very painful so yes she did at the end of theea experiment when it was clear her husbands farm was failing, she went to new york to edit the standard which was the journal of the American Antislavery Society. She was alsoanan the first womao doa anything like that, to edita weekly political journal and it was a very tricky question whether she worked for garrison. The technical answer was no because he had the National Antislavery Standard was supposed to be independent of garrisons direct influence. He wasnt supposed to be in charge of it so there was one very painful episode when she had decided to come out in favor of disunion so she decided the time had come for the north to secede from the t south becauset was clear the norths attempt to get them in were not working so she published an editorial in the standard arguing that. A couple weeks later, garrison and the liberator said add to the next American Antislavery Society meeting, the main item on the agenda will be this union because we have now decided that it is the standard by which every persons patriotism and loyalty to the cause will be judged. This was a major overstep. He should not have been dictatingan the agenda of the society and he shouldnt have been laying down another litmus test for what it meant to be an abolitionist. So, child actually rebuked him in print which as you can imagine the new york newspapers loved because here we cann see again child was very clear she wanted people to oppose slavery according to their own conscience and felt like garrison was trying to dictate to people and always felt like even if that would never work and that it was a mistake because you needed people to do things out of their own conscience. So that caused a kind of i wouldnt say rift between them because they reconciled pretty quickly but in fact it was her way of saying i dont work for you im in the employment of this society that is not the society you are running so it was a lifelong collaboration. One of the last people she saw so they remained friends but i think when you see these relationships, and i would include her marriage under this category, dedicating yourself to fighting andy entrenched injustice is hard on a relationship and even the best people can be at odds with each other over disagreements on how to reach a common goal. That probably doesnt surprise anyone in the room. Maybe a few more questions. I finished reading the book just this morning and i dont usually read books that are that long but i want to tell people it is very much worth getting a hold of and im glad that you are recording it. Ixc could easily do three or for more nights of excerpts from this so i want to thank you also for taking childs example personally. I find her a source of courage for myself if i feel a little down i think look at the things she coped with. She had a lot of difficulties you didnt dwell on in the talk but her lifee was hard in a lot of ways and its pretty amazing. Thank you for that. Ive had other people say and i feel this way myself in a way someone said to me recently its not even shes so much inspiration because its clear to me i dont have what it takes to be someone like her but its still whatever ie can do to emulate some of what she did and other thing to lift up the voices of people who do have that kind of courage and conviction so that even those of us who are, who dont have the kind of tenacity and courage can contribute. Its going to be a very long audiobook so dont be daunted by it. One last thought . Okay. Last question back here. Im fascinated by the words you are using about conversion, converting to abolitionism and the competition with the preachers and the clergy. It just kind of struck me how much it was like a religion and it seems like a religion for her and i know she struggled with her own religious beliefs and im wondering do you think it is a kind of religion for her . Not quite because she did have b a spiritual vision that s even bigger. She had been very influenced by the swedishde theologian who had this very complicated but also platonic sort of idea that all truths are interconnected and the great force in the world of love and if we can just love each other more purely, we will see the truth better and some of the conflictso that otherwise would fall away so i think shes all abolition and is the form and example of what needed to change without vision to be realized but she also was involved in arguing for the rights of native americans and also as i said for women she worked hard on Prison Reform and also to try to institute and improve a lot of impoverished womenin whod fallen into crimes of the broad spiritual vision was her religion as it were. She never joined a church after she left but as i say the last publication was an articulation of this spiritual view under which many of the injustices she spent her life fighting. Thank you all so much. [applause] and thank you to the videographers as well. We believe here or here or way out in the middle of nowhere you should have access to past reliable iernet. Along with these Companies Supporting cspan2 as a public service. Ranks among the challenging undertakings of the 20th century within less than a decade the United States leapt from suborbital flights to landing lg human beings on the moon and returning them safely back to earth. Hundreds of thousands of people