I recently read Frederick Douglass’ autobiography, and found it inspirational. When I expressed my enthusiasm on X, I got mocked by many for having just discovered this hip new writer.
When I think about why I didn’t read Frederick Douglass’ biography until now, part of the answer is that I basically never read anything in school, even what was assigned. Still, I’ve read a lot of books over the years, and I was never inspired to pick this one up. It’s kind of strange, though, since Douglass was the most prominent black intellectual of the nineteenth century, and I knew that he had been born a slave before escaping, so the story would obviously be of interest.
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In all the Old South, there is not one statue of James Longstreet, Robert E. Lee's "old warhorse" and right-hand man after the death of Stonewall Jackson, and also one of Ulysses Grant's West Point classmates and best friends, whom he and Lee surrendered to at Appomattox.
After the war, Longstreet was a fervent supporter of Grant, Reconstruction, and rights for freed slaves. He led mixed race militias against the Ku Klux Klan and other recalcitrant Southern whites in pitched battles.
This explains why no statues of Longstreet were erected with all of the other Confederates during Jim Crow, but begs the question of why no one else ever bothered to do so, except for the one on the Gettysburg battlefield.
Longstreet proves people really can change, and that makes many people, including those who see white supremacy behind every bush, uneasy. We should remember Longstreet at least as much as we remember Grant and Lee.
It is sad to see the right’s conflation of a focus on the evil of slavery with hate for America. When I read about these great figures like Douglass and Lincoln I feel more patriotic, not less.