Violence as an Instrument for Social Change: The Views of Frederick Douglass (1817-1895)

Goldstein, Leslie Friedman

doi:10.2307/3031533

Cited by 23 publications

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“…A biographical episode marked a turning-point in his moral approach to violence (Goldstein 1976: 64). In 1833, while still a slave, he was involved in a violent physical altercation with a slaveholder, a certain Mr Covey, after suffering a series of brutal beatings.…”

Section: Frederick Douglass or The Torment Of A Former Apostle Of Nomentioning

confidence: 99%

Is Violence Sometimes a Legitimate Right? An African-American Dilemma

Laurent

2014

Diogenes (Engl. ed.)

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The contrast, often painted in simplistic colours, between Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X as civil rights campaigners bolsters an erroneous reading of the freedom struggle of African-Americans, leaving the impression that the resort to violence and self-defence propounded by Malcolm X was a purely circumstantial departure from the general strategy of the civil rights movement. In fact, both of them reflected long on the capacity of violence and a contrario of non-violence to bring about political and social transformation in the context of the extreme brutality and oppression being suffered by African-Americans. Their dilemma stemmed from an old intellectual tradition of the America of the slave period. Well before the ideas of Gandhi won over the African-American elite, and even before Henry David Thoreau laid the theoretical basis for civil disobedience, African slaves gave thought to the legitimacy and effectiveness of violence to amend their situation. The importance of the non-violent movement in the United States and the historical significance of Martin Luther King cannot be understood unless a true measure is taken of the anti-slavery struggle. While within the religious domain, the Black Church played a major role in dissuading violence, secular thought in favour of legitimate forceful rebellion also found itself confronted by a counter-argument which advanced the power of social change and resistance to injustice that non-violence could effect. This article particularly addresses the challenges to their consciences that confronted the militants of non-violence in their campaign for the abolition of slavery and notably those facing the central figure of that struggle, the former slave become the apostle of liberation, Frederick Douglass. The contrast, often painted in simplistic colours, between Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X as civil rights campaigners bolsters an erroneous reading of the freedom struggle of African-Americans, with the fame of the Nobel Peace Laureate in effect leaving the impression that the

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Section: Frederick Douglass or The Torment Of A Former Apostle Of Nomentioning

confidence: 99%

Is Violence Sometimes a Legitimate Right? An African-American Dilemma

Laurent

2014

Diogenes (Engl. ed.)

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“…Douglass stated that he embraced nonresistance until he was attacked by a mob in Pendleton, Indiana, in 1843. He came to reject the doctrine after he concluded that the defense of his own life and that of his friends was justified (Goldstein 1976). Even after he no longer espoused the radical tenets of nonresistance, however, he still embraced pacifism, at least for strategic reasons.…”

Section: The Paradox Of Douglass's Pacifismmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…There are several possible ways of reconciling the apparent inconsistency. Some commentators have suggested that Douglass never really embraced nonviolence as an ethical doctrine (Goldstein 1976). According to this position, his many statements condemning the use of violence were strategic not categorical; they merely reflected his conviction that slave revolts in the United States would be counterproductive and weaken rather than strengthen the emerging consensus in favor of abolition.…”

Section: The Paradox Of Douglass's Pacifismmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In 1854 he wrote that violence against slave‐holders was “wise as well as just” (Douglass 1950–, I, 286). In 1857 he stated that he hoped for a slave uprising in the South and praised the slave revolts in the West Indies (Goldstein 1976, 66). By the outbreak of the Civil War, his transition had long been complete.…”

Section: The Paradox Of Douglass's Pacifismmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Frederick Douglass's Master-Slave Dialectic

Kohn

2005

The Journal of Politics

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This article explores the issues of violence, recognition, and freedom in the work of Frederick Douglass. It analyzes the contradiction between Douglass's defense of pacifism in his speeches and articles (before 1847) and his celebration of the redemptive effects of violence in his autobiographies, most notably in his account of his fight with the slave breaker Edward Covey. One thing that distinguishes this article from other interpretations of Douglass is that it draws upon another famous account of the struggle between master and slave-Hegel's dialectic of lordship and bondage-in order to offer a novel resolution to this interpretive puzzle. By reading these two nineteenth-century accounts together we see how the texts illuminate, complicate, and challenge one another.

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Black Nature

Newman¹

2019

The Literary Heritage of the Environmental Justice Movement

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Violence as an Instrument for Social Change: The Views of Frederick Douglass (1817-1895)

Cited by 23 publications

References 0 publications

Is Violence Sometimes a Legitimate Right? An African-American Dilemma

Is Violence Sometimes a Legitimate Right? An African-American Dilemma

Frederick Douglass's Master-Slave Dialectic

Black Nature

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