Frederick Douglass
Frederick Douglass, 1866
On March 16, 1867, Frederick Douglass made his first stop in Minnesota, in Winona. In front of a crowd of over 1,000 people, Douglass gave a lecture detailing the fragility of the federal government’s institutions and the dangers of overconfidence in the government. He repeatedly referenced the Civil War, partly because he believed the country was avoiding the moral lessons from the war, arguing that the war was about more than saving the Union, rather saving the country by creating a more fair and equal society by freeing the enslaved.
Wayne Gannaway, the executive director for the History Center of Olmsted County, wrote an article for MNHS entitled “The Perils of Peace” in 2018 and recently gave a virtual talk about his article and Douglass’ time in Minnesota and life.
“My hometown of Winona has a complicated backstory when it comes to African-Americans. As a matter of fact I believe that’s probably true for many towns, cities, here in Minnesota and I think we’re learning that everyday,” Gannaway said.
While Minnesota had fought in the Union, racism was still evident in the state with a Black population that was less than one percent. A local hotel refused to let Douglass stay, and in his autobiography, he wrote about how the effects of slavery and racism permeated the North, “It was in the air, and men breathed it and were permeated by it often when they were quite unconscious of its presence.”
Gannaway went on to explain how Douglass wound up in Winona. Douglass was a high-demand public speaker at the time, and was on a lecture tour with two stops scheduled for Minnesota (the other being St. Paul). Douglass was part of the Young Men’s Library Association’s 1867 lecture series, which included Ralph Waldo Emerson, Wendell Phillips and other prominent figures of the time, all but guaranteeing a good-sized, attentive audience.
“Frederick Douglass knew the end of the Civil War was only the beginning of the struggle to achieve equality and to, he really believed and I think he was right, to safeguard the republic. He really thought those two were intertwined, equality and safeguarding democracy,” Gannaway says.
Douglass didn’t shy away from explicitly speaking about the horrors Black people faced in the South, saying: “Loyal men by the score, by the hundred, have been deliberately and outrageously, and in open daylight, slaughtered by the known enemy of this country and thus far the murderers are at large; unquestioned by the law, unpunished by justice, unrebuked even by the public opinion of the localities where the crimes were committed.”
In his lecture, Douglass had President Andrew Johnson in mind when speaking about the political crisis of the time. He believed Johnson becoming president after Abraham Lincoln was killed summed up the weakness in the Constitution, the widespread compromises in the capital, and the precarious position of Reconstruction. Douglass’ worries would manifest themselves when Johnson vetoed Reconstruction packages that would have supplied freed men and women with federal aid; his veto was overridden by Republicans in office.
Gannaway shared a few books he believes are important to achieve a better understanding of Frederick Douglass, including Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom by David W. Blight, The Columbian Orator, which Gannaway said was important for Douglass’ “crafting of arguments”, and Peculiar Imbalance by William D. Green.
“Douglass was acutely aware of historical consciousness and that historical memory was essential,” he says.
