Pictures of them together? Are you thinking of Booker T Washington on
stage with Twain sitting behind him? Or John T Lewis and Twain at Quarry
Farm?
Kevin
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------ Original Message ------
From: "Clay Shannon" <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: 8/10/2020 1:16:09 PM
Subject: Re: If Alive Today, Would Mark Twain support "Black Lives
Matter"?
>Yes, Twain and Douglass knew each other; there are pictures of them together; his in-laws had played a role in his escape to the North via the Underground Railroad.
>
>-- B. Clay Shannon
>[log in to unmask]
>
>> On Aug 10, 2020, at 6:52 AM, Dave Davis <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>
>>
>> I'd say he certainly did his bit, according to his lights. And, I think the passage you cite, Clay, suggests that notion wonderfully and subserversively. Other evidences that he came to believe that Black lives matter, too, are to be found elsewhere in 'Huck Finn' also -- it is a central point of Jim's narrative and Huck's dawning realization of his own moral situation. And, of course, there's " “A True Story Repeated Word for Word as I Heard It ." It's a complex record, but on the whole a decent one, I feel.
>>
>> I don't know if he ever met Frederick Douglass (d .1895) or heard him speak but that is certainly possible. He met and was photographed with G.W. Carver, and supported the Tuskegee Institute, as well as donating privately to one or more Black students who were pursuing college degrees, I believe. (Paine reports this.)
>>
>> A less prominent African-American whom he held in high regard -- John T. Lewis -- is discussed in this article (there are a couple of famous photographs of them together): Lewis was employed as a coachman for Jervis Langdon.
>>
>>https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2004/jun/18/20040618-080728-2424r/
>>
>> See also: http://www.twainquotes.com/Negroes.html
>>
>> DDD
>>
>>
>> On Mon, Aug 10, 2020 at 9:17 AM Clay Shannon <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>> If Alive Today, Would Mark Twain support "Black Lives Matter"?
>>> I believe that he doubtless would.
>>> By exposing the way some white folks thought at the time (mid-1800s) and place (Mississippi River valley), Mark Twain made the point in "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" that Black Lives Matter.
>>> You might even say that is the whole theme of the book. For one example of that, note this passage from Chapter 33 where Twain, in a tongue-in-cheek way, underscores the illogical thinking of some white people of the time and place:
>>> “Now I can have a good look at you; and, laws-a-me, I’ve been hungry for it a many and a many a time, all these long years, and it’s come at last! We been expecting you a couple of days and more. What kep’ you?—boat get aground?”
>>> “Yes’m—she—”
>>> “Don’t say yes’m—say Aunt Sally. Where’d she get aground?”
>>> I didn’t rightly know what to say, because I didn’t know whether the boat would be coming up the river or down. But I go a good deal on instinct; and my instinct said she would be coming up—from down towards Orleans. That didn’t help me much, though; for I didn’t know the names of bars down that way. I see I’d got to invent a bar, or forget the name of the one we got aground on—or—Now I struck an idea, and fetched it out:
>>> “It warn’t the grounding—that didn’t keep us back but a little. We blowed out a cylinder-head.”
>>> “Good gracious! anybody hurt?”
>>> “No’m. Killed a nigger.”
>>> “Well, it’s lucky; because sometimes people do get hurt. Two years ago last Christmas your uncle Silas was coming up from Newrleans on the old Lally Rook, and she blowed out a cylinder-head and crippled a man. And I think he died afterwards. He was a Baptist. Your uncle Silas knowed a family in Baton Rouge that knowed his people very well. Yes, I remember now, he did die. Mortification set in, and they had to amputate him. But it didn’t save him. Yes, it was mortification—that was it. He turned blue all over, and died in the hope of a glorious resurrection. They say he was a sight to look at.
>>>
>>>
>>> - B. Clay Shannon
>
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