Yesterday our nation celebrated the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Dr. Kings involvement and leadership in the Civil Rights Movement came almost 100 years after the Duke family was living here on the Homestead. This does not mean that the fight for equality was a new one. On the contrary, while the Dukes were living on the Homestead from 1852 until 1874, the fight for freedom and equality was just as strong. Great voices for freedom and equality of the time period included women like Harriet Jacobs and Sojourner Truth, and men like Frederick Douglas and Octavius V. Catto. In 1861, Harriet Jacobs self-published her book, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, which told of her experiences as an enslaved person in Edenton, NC and her escape to freedom. Throughout the Civil War, Jacobs served to aid African-American troops and after the war, aided freedmen in Washington D.C. Sojourner Truth was a powerful public speaker on the subject of abolition, womens rights, and equality. Though she gave her most famous Aint I a Woman speech in 1851, Truth continued to campaign for an end to discrimination and for womens rights until her death in 1875. She even met with Abraham Lincoln in the White House in 1864. One of the great Abolitionist and Civil Rights leaders of the 19th century, Frederick Douglas was an impressive orator and writer who escaped from slavery at the age of twenty. From that point on he worked for abolition and racial equality. During the Civil War, he not only recruited African-American troops but on two occasions served as adviser to President Lincoln. He is well known for the creation and publication of the Abolitionist paper The North Star, which continued to circulate under the name Frederick Douglas Paper until 1860. Lesser known than Douglas, Octavius V. Catto was still a powerful voice for abolition and equality in Philadelphia, PA. He was heavily involved in local and national politics and used peaceful resistance and his political influence to gain victories for racial equality. In 1864, along with Frederick Douglas, he became one of the founding members of the National Equal Rights League. Locally, Catto worked to get black men to the voting booth. However, it was for these efforts that Cato was assassinated in 1871. As we remember Dr. King and his contributions to the Civil Rights Movement, it is important to remember that this movement was not a singular point in time. We must remember that during the time of the Duke family and even before, there were leaders campaigning for freedom and equality.
Posted on: Tue, 21 Jan 2014 17:03:32 +0000
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