Frederick Douglass’s American Identity Politics by Peter C. Myers

 Frederick Douglass’s American Identity Politics by Peter C. Myers

“No people can prosper,” Douglass reiterated late in life, “unless they have a home, or the hope of a home”—and “to have a home,” one “must have a country.” America, in Douglass’s abiding vision, was black Americans’ proper home, their only realistic alternative and also the locus of their highest ideals. By its white and black citizens together, America must be cherished and perfected as a genuine home for all, not merely by the accident and force of necessity but as an object of rational and sentimental identification. For Douglass as for Abraham Lincoln, their common country was, through it all, the last best hope of earth.

Wonderful reminder of what is good about America from a man who knew intimately what was bad.