It was one of those bitterly cold days, and Douglass reached home just in time for supper. He was in high good spirits. Even while he shook off the snow and removed his boots in the hall he was recounting the happenings of the day.
“Miss Anthony was at her best!” he said as he stood before the big open fire, warming his hands.
“I’m a little tired,” he said after supper. He had started up the stairs and stopped, apparently to look at the picture of John Brown which hung there on the wall. His wife, in the living room, turned quickly. The phrase was unlike him.
And then he fell. He was dead before they could get him to his room.
All the great ones spoke at his funeral. Susan B. Anthony read Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s memorial to the only man who had sustained her demand for the enfranchisement of women at the first convention back in 1848.
There have been many memorials to him—in marble and bronze, in song and poetry. But stone and wood are dead, and only we can make words come alive. Frederick Douglass’ words reach us across the years:
Though I am more closely connected and identified with one class of outraged, oppressed and enslaved people, I cannot allow myself to be insensible to the wrongs and suffering of any part of the great family of man. I am not only an American slave, but a man, and as such, am bound to use my powers for the welfare of the whole human brotherhood.... I believe that the sooner the wrongs of the whole human family are made known, the sooner those wrongs will be reached.[35]
Epilogue
Any portion of the story of man’s struggle for freedom is marvelously strange. This is a true story, and therefore some footnotes are necessary. In many instances I have quoted directly from Frederick Douglass’ autobiographies. His own words, with their simple, forthright quality, form a clear picture of the man.
This book attempts to bring together many factors. I am therefore deeply indebted to all who have labored long and faithfully in compiling this story. Special mention must be made of W. E. B. Du Bois’ Black Reconstruction and John Brown, W. P. and F. J. Garrison’s William Lloyd Garrison, Ida Harper’s Susan B. Anthony, Rayford Logan’s Diplomatic Relations of the United States with Haiti, A. A. W. Ramsay’s Sir Robert Peel, J. T. Wilson’s The Black Phalanx and The Journal of Negro History, edited by Carter G. Woodson.