Frederick Douglass, Henry Ward Beecher, Booker T. Washington

Guests Who Changed America

FREDERICK DOUGLASS

Frederick Douglass (born Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey) escaped from one of the most horrific forms of slavery in 1838 at age 20. Three years later, he attended a lecture by abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison and was himself unexpectedly asked to speak. After he told his story, he received encouragement to become a lecturer himself. His autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave” (1845), became a bestseller – and Douglass became a public figure. His official freedom came in 1846, when British supporters arranged to purchase his freedom from his “owner.” His voice resonated through the buildup to the Civil War and during it. Here is a telling excerpt from his current Wikipedia page:

At the unveiling of the Emancipation Memorial in Washington's Lincoln Park, Douglass was the keynote speaker. In his speech, Douglass spoke frankly about Lincoln, balancing the good and the bad in his account. He called Lincoln "the white man's president" and cited his tardiness in joining the cause of emancipation. He noted that Lincoln initially opposed the expansion of slavery but did not support its elimination. But Douglass also stated, "Can any colored man, or any white man friendly to the freedom of all men, ever forget the night which followed the first day of January 1863, when the world was to see if Abraham Lincoln would prove to be as good as his word?"
The crowd, roused by his speech, gave him a standing ovation. A long-told anecdote claims that the widow Mary Lincoln gave Douglass Lincoln's favorite walking stick in appreciation. Lincoln's walking stick still rests in Douglass' house known as Cedar Hill. It is both a testimony and a tribute to the effect of Douglass' powerful oratory.

After the Civil War, Douglass labored to counter the prevalent racism in labor unions, as well as to fight the Ku Klux Klan and to support giving the vote to women (which would not happen until long after his death).

His visit to St. Johnsbury probably took place on December 4, 1869, as expected when this St. Johnsbury Caledonian  article was published (thanks to Denise Scavitto for the article). This talk, which would have drawn a large audience, probably took place at the nearby YMCA building (since destroyed by fire), which hosted many lectures in its larger space.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Born in New England and schooled at Boston Latin School and Amherst College, this newly minted preacher became a public figure when he reached the new Plymouth Congregational Church in Brooklyn and became its minister in 1847. A friend to Mark Twain and Walt Whitman, sister of Harriet Beecher Stowe (who wrote Uncle Tom’s Cabin), and an advocate of women’s suffrage (“the vote”) and Darwin’s theory of evolution, he was best known as a foe to slavery and bigotry of all kinds (religious, racial, and social).

Like Mark Twain, Beecher found the lecture circuits an ideal way to promote his moral convictions. His visit to St. Johnsbury, arranged through the Y.M.C.A., probably in 1880 when he also spoke in St. Albans, recalled an earlier visit to Brattleboro when he was only a junior in college, already lecturing on temperance – and was then paid the sum of ten dollars, an experience that turned him from student to dedicated public man. His noted lecture “Merchants and Ministers” included this:

… Education will lead more men to heaven than any high Church theology, or any other kind that leaves that out. What, then, are we going to do? It seems to me there are three things that must be done. In the first place, the household must do its work. The things which we learn from our fathers and mothers we never forget, by whichever end they enter. [Laughter.] They become incorporated into our being, and become almost instincts, apparently. If we have learned at home to love and hnor the truth, until we come to hate, as men hate filth, all lying, all double-tongued business – if we get that firmly ingrained, we shall probably carry that feeling to the end of life – and it is the most precious thread of life – provided we keep out of politics. [Laughter.]
Next, it seems to me that this doctrine of truth, equity, and fidelity must form a much larger part and a much more instructive part of the ministrations of the Church than it does today. … The Church should feed the hungry soul. …
Next, there must be a public sentiment among all honorable merchants which shall frown … upon all that is violative of truth, equity and fidelity. These three qualities are indispensable to the prosperity of commerce.

BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

Booker T. Washington was five years old when the Civil War began. A transplated Vermont woman, Viola Knapp Ruffner, supported his education in the hard years after the war, in West Virginia. He became the first principal for the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute (now Tuskegee University), where black Americans learned to teach. Soon he was considered a spokesman for African Americans in the post-war nation, and his 1895 Atlanta Exhibition address was embraced as outlining the steps toward equal rights.

His visit to St. Johnsbury, arranged through the Y.M.C.A., may have been connected with his 1896 speech to Harvard Alumni, after which he received an honorary Master of Arts degree from Harvard University. The speech became known as “The American Standard,” from this portion:

If my life in the past has meant anything in the lifting up of my people and the brining about of better relations between your race and mine, I assure you from this day it will mean doubly more. In the economy of God, there is but one standard by which an individual can succeed – there is but one for a race. This country demands that every race measure itself by the American standard. … We are to be tested ion our patience, our forbearance, our perseverance, our power to endure wrong, to withstand temptations, to economize, to acquire and use skill; our ability to compete, to succeed in commerce, to disregard the superficial for the real, the appearance for the substance, to be great and yet small, learned and yet simple, high and yet the servant of all. This, this is the passport to all that is best in the life of our Republic, and the Negro much possess it, or be disbarred.