Sacrifices for a Better Future

Two great Americans who escaped slavery have a lot to tell us about how to live now

(89-year-old Harriet Tubman in 1911 via Getty Images.)

Yes, there are hard and awful days ahead. Yes, we didn’t expect that a fascist adversary would be conducting its attack from our own White House. But this is our challenge now—and like many generations who have sacrificed before us, I believe we will do what is needed to sustain America’s democratic future.

I am among the many who felt the devastating weight of Trump’s victory on Nov. 5. I have heard from readers, friends, family members and others who worry for the future and wonder if they have the energy to confront this dark force bent on turning back the clock and stripping away the world that we know. Many have doubted whether there’s anything they can do besides tuning out to maintain their health and live their days in relative peace and quiet.

I understand that inclination. I can see why tending to one’s own garden, with the news turned off, feels like the sensible choice. I can’t avoid the exhausting recognition that this battle will be a daily onslaught and will continue for years with people who revel in cruelty, thrive on chaos and savor destruction. But yesterday’s news that Matt Gaetz withdrew his nomination for Attorney General should be a reminder that this attack on our body politic, the Constitution, justice, democracy and the rule of law will not simply be one-sided; Trump and his enablers will not experience non-stop, unimpeded success—as long as there is a vivid, consistent and courageous opposition.

I’d like to share two historical snapshots to remind you of the depth of commitment required to make a better future. They inspire me not only to stay engaged, but to recognize that there are many who came before us and confronted conditions far worse than our current reality. I hope they will inspire you, too.

The first is Harriet Tubman, who I wrote about several years ago for a Saturday prompt. She’s been on my mind these last days because its nearly impossible to fully comprehend the bravery it took for her to accomplish what she did to secure freedom for so many others. Here’s how I described her then:

Born Araminta Ross, Harriet Tubman escaped from slavery in 1849. She could have stayed away from Maryland, the place of her violent bondage. She could have found a new life of freedom and never turned back. “When I found I had crossed that line," she later told a biographer, "I looked at my hands to see if I was the same person. There was such a glory over everything; the sun came like gold through the trees, and over the fields, and I felt like I was in Heaven.” But she went back, again and again, to rescue some 70 fellow humans, returning 13 times in all. “My father, my mother, my brothers and sisters and friends were there,” she said. “I was free, and they should be free.”

The bravery of this tough and tiny woman, said to be no more than five feet tall, is indisputable. But it’s her devotion to the welfare of others, at such extraordinary risk to herself, that touches me most. Hear how Frederick Douglass summarized the difference between her and him in a letter for the 1868 biography, Scenes in the Life of Harriet Tubman: “I have had the applause of the crowd and the satisfaction that comes of being approved by the multitude, while the most that you have done has been witnessed by a few trembling, scarred, and foot-sore bondmen and women, whom you have led out of the house of bondage, and whose heartfelt ‘God bless you’ has been your only reward.”

And then there’s Frederick Douglass himself, who careful readers of America, America know that I consider one of our country’s greatest citizens. He may talk about his own approval “by the multitude,” but it’s hard to overstate what he suffered to achieve that position and provide profound insights that continue to inform and educate us today.

I could describe the terrible things—the awful, bloody tortures—that were done to him. He was, in his own words, “humbled, degraded, broken down, enslaved and brutalized.” Indeed, he lived in chains and was nearly beaten to death.

But it is what he witnessed as a young boy that’s perhaps more heart-wrenching, as he came to understand that he was living in a world of evil controlled by cruel and evil men. He describes his master’s overseer as “a savage monster,” who engaged in “extraordinary barbarity” and took “great pleasure in whipping a slave.”

Permit me to share one of Douglass’ most horrifying experiences, published in his 1845 autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass:

I have often been awakened at the dawn of day by the most heart-rending shrieks of an own aunt of mine, whom he used to tie up to a joist, and whip upon her naked back till she was literally covered with blood. No words, no tears, no prayers, from his gory victim, seemed to move his iron heart from its bloody purpose. The louder she screamed, the harder he whipped; and where the blood ran fastest, there he whipped longest. He would whip her to make her scream, and whip her to make her hush; and not until overcome by fatigue, would he cease to swing the blood-clotted cowskin.

I remember the first time I ever witnessed this horrible exhibition. I was quite a child, but I well remember it. I never shall forget it whilst I remember any thing. It was the first of a long series of such outrages, of which I was doomed to be a witness and a participant. It struck me with awful force. It was the blood-stained gate, the entrance to the hell of slavery, through which I was about to pass. It was a most terrible spectacle.

It’s hard to imagine how any person could live through what he did and emerge with the capacity—the sanity—to become one of the country’s great observers, thinkers and writers. He never forgot what he suffered; he did not look away. Rather, he had the clarity and reason to look directly at the darkness in the soul of a nation that permitted slavery and yearned to make things better. He expressed his outrage in order to jolt his audiences toward change.

“I do not despair of this country. There are forces in operation which must inevitably work the downfall of slavery,” he said in his famous speech on the 5th of July, 1852. He talked that day of “the mournful wail of millions” and the “bleeding children of sorrow” who he would not forget.

And he was clear about the obligation he felt to help create the world he wanted to live in. “Standing with God and the crushed and bleeding slave on this occasion,” he said, “I will, in the name of humanity which is outraged, in the name of liberty which is fettered, in the name of the Constitution and the Bible which are disregarded and trampled upon, dare to call in question and to denounce, with all the emphasis I can command, everything that serves to perpetuate slavery the great sin and shame of America!”

Perhaps this reflection appears like a distraction from our times. But I hope it serves as a reminder of many Americans who came before us, who suffered and survived some of the worst crimes that human society can commit. It’s hard to imagine how they lived through these traumas to become people capable of such great contribution.

But they did, which is why they motivate me and why I hope these two stories—among many others for future reflections—may provide some encouragement that we are more than able to confront and overcome the cruel and hateful adversaries soon to take power in America. The effort may be exhausting, but we cannot be exhausted. We have our families, neighbors, communities and a country to save.

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One more thing: Can I offer you a laugh? This is a sketch from Saturday Night Live, just after Donald Trump won in 2016, as cast members slowly comprehend on election night that Hillary Clinton is going to lose. Spoiler alert: As the white cast becomes increasingly stunned by the results, host Dave Chappelle and later Chris Rock can’t contain their amusement at their failure to grasp how America could choose a racist for president.

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