Happy Valentine’s Birthday to…

 

Happy 264^th Birthday to Richard Allen

The founder and First Bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Church

 

Born: February 14, 1760

Birthplace: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Died: March 26, 1831 (71 years old)

Mr. Allen and a few members of his family were slaves who were given the opportunity to buy their freedom. Their owner was convinced by another minister who’d freed his own slaves to take this action. (Though, of course, simply setting them free would have been more admirable.) 

 

In 1780, Mr. Allen bought his freedom and took on the surname of “Allen.” He and his wife, Flora, worked closely together to establish a church. After her death, Mr. Allen moved to Philadelphia and married Sarah Bass who is known in the AME Church as the “Founding Mother.”

 

Other Achievements: 

 

·      A 1949 episode of a radio drama, Destination Freedom, called “Apostle of Freedom,” features Mr. Allen’s story.

·      Allen University, a historically Black university was renamed in Mr. Allen’s honor when it moved to Columbia, South Carolina in 1880.

·      The US Postal Service issued a stamp honoring Mr. Allen in February 2016 with a first-day ceremony in Philadelphia. The stamp is part of the ongoing Black Heritage Series.

 

Happy 206^th Birthday to Frederick Douglass

American social reformer, abolitionist, orator, writer, and statesman

 

Born: February 14, 1818

Birthplace: Talbot County, Maryland, United States

Died: February 20, 1895 (77 years old)

 

This is the date listed as Mr. Douglass’s birthday, however, his actual birthdate isn’t known. He was born a slave and sold from one slaveowner to another throughout his youth. His first escape attempt failed, but he succeeded on his second attempt with the help of Anna Murray. They married, settled for a time in Massachusetts, and had five children.

His first autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, became a bestseller. He later wrote two additional books about his experiences as a former slave, a leader in the abolitionist movement, and supporter of women’s suffrage.

 

A man named Charles Lawson encouraged Mr. Douglass’s spiritual growth. “[I]n tones of holy affection he told me to pray, and to ‘cast all my care upon God.’…My desire to learn increased, and especially did I want a thorough acquaintance with the contents of the Bible.”

 

Happy 205^th Birthday to Christopher Latham Sholes

“Father of the Typewriter”

 

Born: February 14, 1819

Birthplace: Mooresburg, Pennsylvania

Died: February 17, 1890 (71 years old)

 

Though he was an inventor, Mr. Sholes did not invent the typewriter. However, he did all of us a favor by inventing the QWERTY keyboard! He and his wife, Mary Jane McKinney, had ten children.

Other Achievements:

 

·      Editor of the Wisconsin Enquirer, the Milwaukee News, and the Milwaukee Sentinel.

·      Senator in the Wisconsin state legislature.

·      Collector of Customs of the port of Milwaukee (inducted by President Abraham Lincoln).

 

Your Turn ~ Which of these "Valentines" would you like to invite to dinner? I'm having trouble deciding myself! 

Wishing all of you a very blessed Valentine's Day. If you share your birthday or anniversary with this "beloved" holiday, then congrats!!!

 

Johnnie writes award-winning stories in multiple genres. A fan of classic movies, stacks of books, and road trips, she shares a life of quiet adventure with Griff, her happy-go-lucky collie, and Rugby, her raccoon-treeing papillon. Visit her at johnnie-alexander.com.

Photos

Richard Allen ~ Painting of Allen on display at the World Methodist Museum, Lake Junaluska, NC. CC0. File:19-22-011-museum.jpg. Created: 14 May 2019. Public domain.

Frederick Douglass, c. 1840s, in his 20s. Unknown author. Retouched portrait. Public domain.

Christopher Latham Sholes, inventor of the first practical typewriter. Iles, George (1912). Leading American Inventors. H. Holt and Company. Permission details: PD-US (public domain/United States). File:Sholes.jpg. Created: 1 January 1912.

Frederick Douglass: American Slave, Orator, Abolitionist, and Statesman

Frederick Douglass, National Portrait Gallery, 
Smithsonian Institution

When I first read the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, I was struck by Douglass’s incredible self-motivation and gift with language and oratory. Then, when I had the opportunity to visit the home of Frederick Douglass, now a national historic site, in Washington D.C. a year or two later, I became even more fascinated with this remarkable man.

Frederick Douglass was born in 1818, son of a slave woman and a white man, most likely his master, though he was never sure. As a child in slavery he witnessed incredible cruelty, though he also had a kind mistress for a few years as an older child, and he taught himself to read during this period with a bit of help from her. He later wrote, though, of how he eventually saw even her gentle character corrupted by the insidious power of slave-holding.

Douglass educated himself, reading all he could get his hands on and absorbing much of his later oratorical technique and human rights philosophy from a copy of The Columbian Orator that he managed to procure. His elevated grasp of language and rhetoric with no formal education was remarkable, making his work challenging but rich reading for adults today.

As a teenager, Douglass suffered under the hand of a notorious “slave-breaker,” Edward Covey, a man wicked enough to be Simon Legree in Uncle Tom’s Cabin. One day, however, young Frederick’s spirit rose up against this man, and he trounced him so well in a fight that Covey never laid a hand on him again. Douglass noted that experience as the moment he felt himself to be a man, and it doubtless gave inspiration for his successful escape from slavery at age twenty.

Douglass's Narrative, published in 1845. Public Domain: PD-US

Douglass married his sweetheart, Anna, a free woman who had helped him escape, and settled in New Bedford, Massachusetts, where he was free, though technically still a fugitive. Then one day, he visited an anti-slavery meeting held by William Lloyd Garrison, a prominent white abolitionist. Garrison persuaded Douglass to speak to the gathering from his own personal experience as a slave. Though Douglass was terrified, he did so, and the response to his impromptu speech was overwhelming. 

For the first time, people were hearing, not just about how bad slavery was, but from someone who had been a slave himself.

Soon Douglass joined the abolition movement as an official travelling orator, and his presence galvanized and humanized the cause as never before. He advised President Lincoln and recruited for the Union cause, though he eventually became disillusioned with Lincoln’s lack of support for racial equality and black suffrage. Douglass continued to fight for freedom and equality for the rest of his life, as a speaker, writer, adviser, and statesman, speaking out in support of women’s rights as well as racial justice. He traveled internationally, especially to Britain, where English friends actually raised the funds to officially buy Douglass’s freedom, lifting the burden of being a fugitive from him forever.

Later in his life, Douglass served under five presidents as U.S. Marshal and Recorder of Deeds for D.C., as well as Consul General to Haiti, the first African-American to hold political office in the United States.

Frederick Douglass's desk in his home, now a National Historic Site
of the District of Columbia. His desk is arranged
almost exactly as it was during his life.

On February 20, 1895, Frederick Douglass died of a heart attack, in between speaking engagements at a women’s rights rally and a local church. His funeral service attracted an overflow crowd at the Metropolitan AME church in Washington D.C., where you can still see the pew where Douglass sat for services. His words and legacy continue to this day, testimony to the power of one man to tell his story and use his gifts for the good of others.

Famous quotes from Frederick Douglass:

"What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July?

I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation of tyrants, brass-fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy - a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages." 

~from Douglass’s “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?” speech on July 5, 1852. Douglass refused to celebrate the 4^th of July until the slaves were freed.

And from his Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, addressing the hypocrisy of professed Christians supporting slavery:

"...I am filled with unutterable loathing when I contemplate the religious pomp and show, together with the horrible inconsistencies, which every where surround me. We have men-stealers for ministers, women-whippers for missionaries, and cradle-plunderers for church members. The man who wields the blood-clotted cowskin during the week fills the pulpit on Sunday, and claims to be a minister of the meek and lowly Jesus...The slave auctioneer's bell and the church-going bell chime in with each other, and the bitter cries of the heart-broken slave are drowned in the religious shouts of his pious master...The dealer gives his blood-stained gold to support the pulpit, and the pulpit, covers his infernal business with the garb of Christianity. Here we have religion and robbery the allies of each other - evils dressed in angels' robes, and hell presenting the semblance of paradise."

So, what do you know about Frederick Douglass? Did you learn anything new today? What stands out to you most about his life? Please comment and share!

Kiersti Giron holds a life-long passion for history and historical fiction. She loves to write stories that show the intersection of past and present, explore relationships that bridge cultural divides, and probe the healing Jesus can bring out of brokenness. Kiersti has been published in several magazines and won the 2013 ACFW Genesis Award - Historical for her manuscript Beneath a Turquoise Sky. A high school teacher and member of American Christian Fiction Writers, Kiersti loves learning and growing with other writers penning God's story into theirs, as well as blogging at www.kierstigiron.com. She lives in California with her wonderful husband, Anthony.

Touching History in Washington DC: Historical Sites off the Beaten Path

Sandra and my sister at the Sotterley Plantation

Have you spent time in Washington D.C.? I went to our nation’s capital with my parents at age nine, but two springs ago I got to visit again, this time with my sister. It was partly a writing research trip for me, and we stayed with my dear friend and critique partner, Sandra Barnes, and her family.




While we still saw the White House, Washington Monument, and Smithsonian, Sandra also helped us find some places not as many tourists know about—partly because of my research about D.C.’s Civil War, African-American, and abolitionist history. And it was in some of these spots where our nation’s past came to life for me the most. So I thought it would be fun to share a few with you!

One of the first places we visited was the Sotterly Plantation in Maryland, about an hour outside Washington D.C. I’d been to a plantation once before, but the truth of what life there meant sank deeper into my heart seeing one with Sandra, who is African American—as we stood first in the sunny, attractive dining room of the family, and then in the dirt-floored, rough-roofed cabin of the slaves. When I gazed below the sloping grain fields sweeping down from the house to the river where slaves used to try and escape, I could almost picture the real people, black and white, who had lived here only a few generations ago.

Sotterley Plantation dining room

Sotterley Plantation slave cabin

Frederick Douglass's office

Next we toured the home of renowned abolitionist,speaker, American ambassador—and former slave—Frederick Douglass, located in the southeast corner of Washington D.C. itself and open only by guided tour. History sprang to life as we viewed grocery budgets and books belonging to Douglass and his wife, as well as his personal office and library, today set to replicate almost exactly an existing photograph of Douglass sitting at his desk. Many of the books and furniture are original. Perhaps most fun was discovering the “Growlery” out back, a little, windowless outdoor building where Douglass would go alone to write, and “growl,” if he needed to! I know some writers who might like to have a Growlery today. :)








Frederick Douglass's "Growlery" out back


In the heart of D.C., we arrived at Ford’s Theatre, where President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated. We walked through historical displays on that fateful night and then sat in the theater itself to see a musical production on the Civil War. The very box where the president and first lady sat for the show that evening—and where John Wilkes Booth shot Lincoln in the head—rose to our right, draped in sober red, white, and blue.



Ford Theatre: Lincoln's box just below chandelier





But I think when history hit me most vividly was at the historic 15th Street Presbyterian Church, an African-American congregation founded in 1841 and involved in the Abolitionist movement I was researching. We met with Dr. Tressie Muldrow, the church historian. She gave us much valuable history on the church, but my sister and I sat most riveted when she began telling us some of her own story, of being one of the college students to participate in the Woolworth’s lunch counter sit-ins in Greensboro, North Carolina, in 1960.


Sitting with Dr. Tressie Muldrow


Dr. Muldrow and the other students, black and white, had sat respectfully but firmly in their chairs at the counter, enduring mayonnaise and mustard smeared in their hair and other abuse from white customers simply for sitting outside the “colored” section. She told us how they, the demonstrators, met together every evening for training and debriefing, and of the satisfaction she feels today when she visits the site of that restaurant and sees it gone, a civil rights museum in its place.


When we visited the Smithsonian's Museum of American History a bit later, we saw those very stools they had sat on at the Woolworth’s counter. It still gives me chills a bit to think of it. 





Woolworth's counter stools at the Smithsonian




We made many other memories, though I don’t have space to detail them all: a chance visit at the Charles Sumner School, one of the first schools for African-American students in D.C.; seeing the “I Have a Dream” paving stone at the Lincoln Memorial where Martin Luther King Jr. gave his famous speech, as well as the MLK memorial itself; the Korean War Memorial, simple but moving, with its realistic statues of soldiers pushing their way through a living “jungle” of bushes; and Arlington Cemetery. Perhaps I can share more another time!



So, have you ever been to Washington D.C.? What unusual historical sites did you find? Please comment and share!



Kiersti Giron holds a life-long passion for history and historical fiction. She loves to write stories that show the intersection of past and present, explore relationships that bridge cultural divides, and probe the healing Jesus can bring out of brokenness. Kiersti has been published in several magazines and won the ACFW Genesis Award - Historical for her manuscript Beneath a Turquoise Sky. She is currently revising her third novel manuscript, a Civil War story set at Fort Tejon in frontier California. A high school teacher and member of American Christian Fiction Writers, Kiersti loves learning and growing with other writers penning God's story into theirs, as well as blogging at www.kierstigiron.com. She lives in California with her wonderful husband, Anthony.