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
>