Frederick Douglass

by Booker T. Washington

Within the spacious church, the scene was such as perhaps had never before been witnessed in this country. All colors and nationalities were present, moved by a common sorrow. Men like Senators Hoar and Sherman; members of the Supreme Court like Justice Harlan; members of the House of Representatives, officials of the District of Columbia, members of the National Council of Women, the faculty of Howard University, several Bishops of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, and other distinguished men and women were present and gave to the sad occasion the character of a national bereavement.

Floral tributes in profusion were sent by organizations of all kinds as well as by individuals. There were two that had special significance; the one sent by the Haytian government, and the other by Colonel B. F. Auld of Baltimore, the son of Frederick Douglass’s former owner. Fervent words of appreciation were spoken by Dr. J. T. Jenifer, pastor of the Metropolitan Church, Rev. F. J. Grimké, Susan B. Anthony, Mrs. May Wright Sewall, John S. Durham, Bishop W. B. Derrick, and M. J. N. Nichols, representing Hayti. The city of Washington, where Mr. Douglass lived so long and was so much esteemed, paid every possible tribute of respect to his memory in these impressive ceremonies.

While the fallen Douglass was thus being honored at the national capital, the city of Rochester was sorrow-stricken at the loss of its “foremost citizen” and at once set about making “suitable arrangements to give his remains according to the desire he so often expressed,—a resting-place in beautiful Mount Hope, the city of the dead.” Rochester always claimed Frederick Douglass as her son by right of adoption, and that at a time when many other Northern cities would not have tolerated his presence. By order of the mayor, a special meeting of the city council was convened “for the purpose of taking such action as might be necessary and appropriate in connection with the funeral of Hon. Frederick Douglass, for many years a respected and beloved citizen of this city.”

At the meeting thus called, a memorial, couched in terms at once touching and flattering, was read and spread upon the records. The council also passed a resolution that the members attend the funeral in a body, and it was arranged that the remains should lie in state in the city hall, and that on the day of the funeral the public schools be closed, so as to give the pupils an opportunity to view the face of a man whose life and character were worthy of their remembrance and emulation.

Thus all the proceedings partook of a civic nature and were impressive beyond anything ever witnessed in honor of a Negro citizen. The services in Rochester were held in the Central Presbyterian Church. The Douglass League acted as a guard of honor in conducting the remains to the city hall and to the church. Rev. W. C. Gannett, of the Unitarian Church, delivered the funeral oration. No other in the United States was better qualified by natural disposition and breadth of mind to give adequate estimate of Douglass as a man. The portion of the address here quoted will afford some notion of the character of the eulogies uttered in all parts of this country and in England in recognition of the worth of Frederick Douglass and his work. Mr. Gannett said in part:

“This is an impressive moment in our city history. There was a man who lived in one of its humbler homes, whose name barred him from the doors of the wealthiest mansions of our city. This man has come home to a little circle of his best beloved ones. He has come, as it were, alone, and our city has gone forth to meet him at its gates. He has been welcomed for once in the most impressive way. His remains have laid in our city hall. Our school children have looked upon his face, that they may in the future tell their children that they have looked on the face of Frederick Douglass. What a difference! What a contrast! What does it all mean? It means two things. It is a personal tribute and it is an impersonal tribute. It is a personal tribute to the man who has exemplified before the eyes of all America the inspiring example of a man who made himself. America is the land of opportunities. But not all men in this land can use their opportunities. Here was a man who used to the uttermost all the opportunities that America held forth to him, and when opportunities were not at hand he made them. Nature gave him birth, nature deprived him of father and almost mother. He was born seventy-eight years ago, forty years before anti-slavery was heard of as a watchword.

“He is not simply a self-made man, although he was one of the greatest. A man self-made but large-hearted. Who ever had better opportunity to be a greater-hearted man than Frederick Douglass? Think of the results for which he labored almost to the end of his life. Notwithstanding that the lash had been lifted from his back, still he encountered shrugs of the shoulders, lifting of the eyebrows, and an edging away of his fellow-men when he approached them, always under that opportunity of insult.

“But that was not all. It is not a simple tribute to the man. The personal tribute rises and loses itself in a grander and nobler thought. It becomes transfigured into an impersonal thought. We are in an era of change on a great subject. White people are here honoring a black people. An exception? Yes. Great men are always exceptions. An exception? Yes, but an instance as well, an example of how the world’s feeling is changing. I like to think over our 140,000 people of Rochester and pick out the two or three who will be called our first citizens twenty or thirty years hence. Very few in Rochester are famous through the North, very few are famous throughout the world. Yet the papers of two continents had editorials about the man whose remains lie before us. We have but one bronze monument in our streets. Will the next be that of Frederick Douglass, the black man, the ex-slave, the renowned orator, the distinguished American citizen? I think it will be. In and around our soldiers’ monument we group the history of the war. It is not only the monument of Lincoln, although Lincoln’s figure is represented there. It is the monument of the war.

“The nation to-day, thank God, is not only celebrating the emancipation of slavery, but also its emancipation from the slavery of prejudice and from the slavery of caste and color.

“Let me end with one word. There are but six words in the sentence, and it is one of the great sentences worthy to be painted on the church walls and worthy to be included in such a book as the Bible. It is his word. It is: ‘One with God is a majority.’”