Frederick Douglass (two "s"s) was no shrinking violet. Nobody can say for sure, but I can't imagine him "throwing out the baby with the bathwater."

- B. Clay Shannon 

    On Tuesday, August 11, 2020, 01:17:11 PM PDT, Philip Bauer <[log in to unmask]> wrote:  
 
 I haven't heard anyone allude to the bifurcation of Black Lives Matter 
i.e. the civil rights slogan and movement vs. BLM Inc.  with its radical 
agenda.  So maybe there should be an additional question.  Would even 
Frederick Douglas support BLM if he knew of the radical wing?
Phil Bauer
Sandusky OH



On 8/11/2020 3:06 PM, Hal Bush wrote:
> Yes, Douglass did meet MT, certainly more than once.  MT wrote a letter to Pres. Garfield on FD's behalf.  Michael Patrick Hearn said, “Frederick Douglass once attended a reading of ‘Huck Finn,’ in Washington D.C., and when it was over he went back stage to see Twain.” Newspaper evidence corroborates all this.
>
> Dwayne Eutsey cites Hearn and has other info on the FD-MT relation at:
> https://marktwainstudies.com/an-amazing-job-frederick-douglass-mark-twain-president-garfield/
>
> As for photos together: I haven't seen any, and seriously doubt it, but would like to see any... I will even pay up to $5 cash for any originals out there.
>
>
>
>
>
> Dr. Hal Bush
>
> Professor of English &
>
> Director of the Undergraduate Program
>
> Saint Louis University
>
> [log in to unmask]
>
> 314-977-3616
>
> http://halbush.com
>
> author website:  halbush.com
>
> ________________________________
> From: Mark Twain Forum <[log in to unmask]> on behalf of Leslie MYRICK <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Monday, August 10, 2020 3:06 PM
> To: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: [External] Re: If Alive Today, Would Mark Twain support "Black Lives Matter"?
>
> We have evidence that Clemens did meet Douglass at least once--see SLC to
> Livy, 15 and 16 Dec 1869
> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.marktwainproject.org/xtf/view?docId=letters*UCCL00388.xml;query=douglass;searchAll=;sectionType1=;sectionType2=;sectionType3=;sectionType4=;sectionType5=;style=letter;brand=mtp*1__;LyM!!K543PA!bIjhnlsA8FlLCiNzM0lRzoARyxHve6EReOKYbbM1C_6OcXibds9sv-NK0a9gveM$
>
> After more than a decade of cataloguing images of MT, with the intention of
> compiling a complete iconography, starting with the extensive collection at
> MTP, I'm pretty sure there are no extant photographs of Clemens and
> Douglass together.
>
> On Mon, Aug 10, 2020 at 9:55 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://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2004/jun/18/20040618-080728-2424r/__;!!K543PA!bIjhnlsA8FlLCiNzM0lRzoARyxHve6EReOKYbbM1C_6OcXibds9sv-NKUxmJuoI$
>>
>> See also: https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://www.twainquotes.com/Negroes.html__;!!K543PA!bIjhnlsA8FlLCiNzM0lRzoARyxHve6EReOKYbbM1C_6OcXibds9sv-NKc5vtaNo$
>>
>> 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
>>>