A Torch for Tomorrow

Civil Rights Protest Literature and the Historical Memory of

Abolitionism Zoe Trodd

April 2008

• The genre of “American protest literature”

• The abolitionist aesthetic

• Historical memory

Old John Brown is not dead. His soul still marches on, and each

passing year weaves new garlands for his brow and adds fresh lustre to his deathless glory. Who shall

be the John Brown of Wage-Slavery?

—Eugene Debs, 1907.

Thomas Clarkson, “Stowage of the British slave ship Brookes,” 1789.

“The officer of justice arresting a helpless female

fugitive in N.Y. What has the North to do with slavery?” in The Legion of Liberty!, 1843.

Illustration in Harper’s Weekly, June 14, 1862.

“The resurrection of Henry Box Brown at Philadelphia,

who escaped from Richmond Va. in a bx 3 feet long 2 1/2 ft. deep and 2 ft

wide,” 1850.

“The Resurrection of Henry Box Brown,” in

William Still, The Underground Railroad:

A Record of Facts, Authentic Narratives, Letters, & etc, 1872.

“3 feet 1 inch long, 2 feet wide, 2 feet 6 inches high. Representation of the box in which a fellow mortal

traveled a long journey, in quest of those rights which the piety and

republicanism of this country denied to him, the

right to possess,” in Charles Stearns,

Narrative of Henry Box Brown, Who Escaped from Slavery, Enclosed in a Box 3 Feet Long and 2 Wide. Written from a Statement of Facts Made by Himself. With Remarks Upon the

Remedy for Slavery, 1849.

“Escaping Child in Trunk,” in William Still, The Underground Railroad: A Record of Facts, Authentic Narratives, Letters, & etc, 1872.

“Expulsion of Negroes and Abolitionists from Tremont Temple, Boston, on December 3, 1860,” Harper’s Weekly,

December 15, 1860.

“Effects of the Fugitive Slave Law,” Hoff and Bloede, Lithograph, 1850.

Frederick Douglass, frontispiece image to My Bondage and My Freedom, 1855.

Photographic portrait of Harriet Jacobs in

her 80s; courtesy Jean Fagan Yellin.

Advertisement submitted by James Norcom for the capture of Harriet Jacobs after she went into hiding; American Beacon, Virginia, July 4, 1835.

Hole Stories

Roy DeCarava, “Hallway,” 1953.

Bill Mauldin, “Inch by Inch,” 1960.

By Roy DeCarava, in Langston Hughes & Roy

DeCarava, The Sweet Flypaper of Life, 1955.

By Roy DeCarava, in Langston Hughes & Roy DeCarava, The Sweet Flypaper of Life, 1955.

We are proud of our white blood and our white heritage of

sixty centuries... If we are bigoted... so were Abraham

Lincoln and our other illustrious forebears who believed in

segregation. We choose the old paths of our founding fathers.

—Association of Citizens’ Councils, 1955.

The very time I thought I was

lost, my dungeon shook and my

chains fell off… [the African

American past] testifies to

nothing less than the perpetual

achievement of the impossible.

—James Baldwin, 1963.

By Danny Lyon, Leesburg, Georgia, 1963.

Richard Avedon, “William Casby, born in

slavery,” Algiers, Louisiana, 1963.

Five score years ago, a great

American, in whose symbolic shadow we

stand, signed the Emancipation

Proclamation… But one hundred years later the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the

chains of discrimination.

—Martin Luther King, Jr., 1963.

Herb Block, “I’m eight. I was born on the day of the Supreme Court decision,”

1962.

Ollie Harrington, “Now I ain’t

so sure I wanna get educated,”

1963.

Marion Trikosko, “Civil Rights March on Washington, D.C.,” 1963.

Gordon Parks, “Emerging Man,” 1952.

By Charles Moore, Birmingham, Alabama, 1963.

By Roy DeCarava, in Langston Hughes & Roy DeCarava, The Sweet Flypaper of Life, 1955.

David Hunter Strother, “Osman,” 1856.

Stanley Kramer (dir.), The Defiant Ones, 1958.

By Charles Moore, Philadelphia,

Mississippi, 1963.

W. P. Snyder, detail from “The Dismal Swamp,” Harper’s Weekly, April

26, 1884.

Herb Block, “And

remember, nothing can

be accomplished by taking to the streets,”

1963.

Jacob Lawrence, “Underground Railroad,”

1948.

Jacob Lawrence, “One-Way Ticket,”

1948.

Jacob Lawrence, “Generations,”

1967.

Jacob Lawrence, detail from The Life of Frederick

Douglass, No. 9, 1939: “Transferred back to the

eastern shore of Maryland, being one of the few Negroes

who could read or write, Douglass was approached by James Mitchell, a free Negro,

and asked to help teach a Sabbath school. However,

their work was stopped by a mob who threatened them

with a death if they continued their class.”

Langston Hughes, “Frederick Douglass: 1817-

1895” (1966)Douglass was someone

who, Had he walked with wary

foot And frightened tread, From very indecision Might be dead, Might have lost his soul, But instead decided to be

bold And capture every street On which he set his feet, To route each path Toward freedom's goal, To make each highway Choose his compass’

choice,

To all the world cried,

Hear my voice!... Oh, to be a beast, a

bird, Anything but a slave!

he said.

Who would be freeThemselves must strike The first blow, he said. He died in 1895. He is not dead.

By Charles Moore, Selma, Alabama, 1965.

The first Negro slaves were brought to this country as freight chained in

the holds of slave ships… three hundred years later a leading Washington hotel [insists] that

Negroes visiting the Democratic National Committee should use the

FREIGHT ELEVATOR.—Langston Hughes, 1947.The patterns of slave days… still

exist…. Front doors are gradually opening to Negroes in many parts of

America, but in Alabama and Mississippi, South Carolina and

Georgia, even back doors are still closed.

—Langston Hughes, 1965.

I am the one who labored as a slave, Beaten and mistreated for the work that I gave... Remember my years, heavy with sorrow And make of those years a torch for tomorrow.

—Langston Hughes, “The Negro Mother” (1931).

I come back todayTo tell you a story of the long dark

way...Make of my past a road to the lightOut of the darkness, the ignorance, the

night...march ever forward, breaking down

bars.Look ever upward at the sun and the

stars.Oh, my dark children, may my dreams

and my prayersImpel you forever up the great stair.

—Langston Hughes, “The Negro Mother” (1931).

There was Denmark Vesey. There was Harriet Tubman. There was Frederick Douglass…. There are the Negro voters of Miami…. And

there are you.—Langston Hughes, 1941.

Nat Turner, Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, John Brown,

Fred Douglass… left no buildings behind them.

—Langston Hughes, 1940.

Keep your hand on the plow!Hold on! If the house is not yet finished,Don’t be discouraged, builder!... The plan and the pattern is here, Woven… into the warp and woof of America.—Langston Hughes, 1943.

Cover image for Langston Hughes, The Glory of Negro History, 1955.

Nat Herz, “Boy on Steps,” Washington, D.C., 1963.

The world still needs figures like William Wilberforces and Harriet Tubmans…there is plenty of room for more anti-slavery heroes…And this time we have

within our power to end slavery for good.

—Jolene Smith, Executive Director, Free the Slaves, March 2007.

Jean-Robert Cadet, 2004.

Roseline Odine, 2005.

Roseline and Christina, two former slaves, at the Lincoln Memorial, Washington, D.C., February

2005.

The 200th anniversary of the The 200th anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade in abolition of the slave trade in the British colonies…will be a the British colonies…will be a

powerful reminder of centuries powerful reminder of centuries of struggle and progress in of struggle and progress in

combating slavery—but also of combating slavery—but also of the fact that we still have not the fact that we still have not

managed to eliminate it managed to eliminate it completely…let us pledge to completely…let us pledge to

draw on the lessons of history draw on the lessons of history to free our fellow human to free our fellow human

beings from slavery.beings from slavery.——Kofi Annan, UN Secretary-Kofi Annan, UN Secretary-

General, December 2006.General, December 2006.