Remembering Frederick Douglass

By Scott Horton

Frederick Douglass was traveling with a friend of another color in a part of the country where public sentiment was bitterly hostile to the association of colors. They stopped at a tavern and dined together, at which spectacle the village, growling and grumbling about the stove in the bar-room, was immediately disposed to mischief. The bar-room philosophers were sadly troubled for the honor of their color.

“What business has a white man to be traveling and eating with a — nigger, anyhow? If he doesn’t know what’s decent, we’ll teach him.” The crowd was, indeed, very anxious to give the offender a few summary lessons in decency. They were like duelists, who have a ludicrous conceit that they know what honor is. Douglass slipped out quiet- ly, and returning after a little while, he remarked to his companion, in a good-humored way, that he had just seen a very singular sight in the stable; and the crowd turned to hear what it was. “You’ll hardly believe it,” said Douglass, addressing his companion as if there were no one else in the room, “but I gave my white mare and your bay horse four quarts of oats each, and there they are, eating side by side as quietly and contentedly as if they were of the same color! ‘Tis most extraordinary!” He did not laugh nor wink, but made his remark with a simple sincerity that was irresistible.

Frederick Douglass (1852)

There was a moment of silence. Then came the echo. Human wit had spoken, and a human heart answered. “What cussed fools we are!” said one of the crowd, sententiously; and a loud laugh followed, which scattered like a burst of sunlight the gathering cloud of mischievous intention. A little tact had been a hundredfold more effectual in melting a prejudice than a series of solemn lectures.

–George William Curtis, A Recollection of Frederick Douglass, Harper’s Magazine, April 1876.