The Daily Signal - Frederick Douglass Statue-Toppling Is About 'Creating Chaos'

Episode Date: July 7, 2020

A Frederick Douglass statue is one of the latest victims in a long string of monument defacement over the past several weeks.  On the 168th anniversary of Douglass’ famous speech, "What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?,” his statue was torn from its base in Rochester, New York and significantly damaged.  The Rev. Dean Nelson, chairman of The Frederick Douglass Foundation, joins the show to discuss the statue's defacement, the significance of Douglass’ 1852 speech and what the abolitionist might say to us today were he still with us.  We also cover these stories: The Supreme Court ruled unanimously that states can’t keep their representatives in the electoral college from ignoring voters’ wishes when they elect a president. The Dakota Access pipeline is being shut down.  President Trump weighed in on NASCAR'S decision to ban the confederate flag.  Be sure to check out The Frederick Douglass Foundation website! Enjoy the show! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Daily Signal podcast for Tuesday, July 7th. I'm Racheljudius. And I'm Virginia Allen. On the 168th anniversary of Frederick Douglass's famous speech, What to the Slave is the 4th of July, delivered in Rochester, New York. A monument of Douglas was torn down from its base. Reverend Dean Nelson, chairman of the Frederick Douglass Foundation, joins the show to discuss the significance of that speech

and the defacement of the Douglas statue. Don't forget, if you're enjoying this podcast, please be sure to leave a review or a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts and encourage others to subscribe. Now on to our top news. The Electoral College was the center of attention at the Supreme Court in a Monday ruling. In a unanimous decision, the Supreme Court ruled that states can't keep their representatives in the Electoral College from ignoring voters' wishes when they elect a president. In the majority opinion, Justice Alana Kagan wrote that the Constitution's texts and the nation's history both support allowing a state to enforce an electors pledge to support his party's nominee and the state voter's choice for president. The case originated out of Washington

State, where three Democratic electors in Washington State voted for former Secretary of State, Colin Powell, instead of Hillary Clinton, hoping that Republican electors would follow suit. The state fined them $1,000 each, prompting a legal challenge from three officials who argued that the state law restricting their electoral college vote was unconstitutional. The Hill reported. The Dakota access pipeline is being shut down. On Monday, U.S. District Judge James Bowsberg ordered that the pipeline be put on hold until the Army Corps of Engineers can conduct an environmental review, a process that will likely take over a year to complete. The $3.8 billion pipeline project has been highly controversial since even before it was approved in 2017.

Environmental groups and the Native Americans that live on the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation has stood in opposition to the project. The pipeline lies close to the stream where the tribe draws its water, raising health concerns. Now the Dakota Access Pipeline that carried oil from North Dakota into South Dakota and Iowa and onto a shipping location in Illinois must be emptied by August 4,000. The ruling is seen as a major win for environmental groups and an upsetting one for the Trump administration. The mayor of Atlanta says a Wendy's that was taken over by protesters will be cleared out after an eight-year-old girl was killed in the vicinity. Protesters had taken over the Wendy's after Rayshard Brooks was killed there last month.

Brooks was killed June 12th in a Wendy's parking lot where law enforcement had been called on him because he had reportedly fallen asleep in the Atlanta Wendy's drive-through. subsequently resisted arrest and was later shot. Here is what Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms had to say via 11 Alive News. Enough is enough. We have talked about this movement that's happening across America in this moment in time where we have the ears and the interests of people across this country and across this globe who are saying they want to see change. But the difference in this moment in time with the civil rights movement, the civil rights movement, there was a defined common enemy. So we're fighting the enemy within when we are shooting each other up on our streets in this city and you shot and killed a baby. And it wasn't one shooter.

There were at least two shooters. An eight-year-old baby. if you want people to take us seriously and you don't want us to lose this movement, then we can't lose each other. President Trump has weighed in on NASCAR's decision to ban the Confederate flag. On June 10th, NASCAR heated driver, Bubble Wallace's call

to ban the Confederate flag from all of its events. On Monday, Trump tweeted about the decision for the first time and about Bubba Wallace's team finding a noose in his garage at an event in June. Trump wrote, Has at Bubba Wallace apologized to all of those great NASCAR drivers and officials who came to his aid, stood by his side, and were willing to sacrifice everything for him, only to find out that the whole thing was just another hoax. That and flag decision has caused lowest ratings ever. Wallace is currently ranked among the top 20 in NASCAR's Cup series this season.

In June, a news was found in the garage assigned to Wallace at the Talladega Speedway in Alabama. An FBI investigation determined that the news had been in the garage since 2019 and was not targeted towards the African American race car driver. Wallace tweeted in response to the FBI's conclusion, I think we'll gladly take a little embarrassment over what the alternative, could have been. And in response to Trump's tweet on Monday, NASCAR driver Tyler Reddick tweeted, we don't need an apology. We did what was right, and we will do just fine without your support. Now stay tuned for my conversation with Reverend Dean Nelson about the defacement of the Frederick Douglas statue in Rochester, New York on the anniversary of the abolitionist famous speech.

What to the slave is the 4th of July? Do you have an interest in public policy? Do you want to hear some of the biggest names in American politics speak? Every day, the Heritage Foundation hosts webinars called Heritage Events Live. Webinar topics range from ethics during the COVID-19 pandemic to the CARES Act and the economy. These webinars are free and open to the public. To find the latest webinars and register, visit heritage.org slash events. I am joined by Reverend Dean Nelson, Chairman of the Frederick Douglas Foundation. Reverend Nelson, it is such a joy having you back on this show today.

Thanks for joining us. Thanks so much for being here. It's always a pleasure to be with you. Now, I do wish that we were meeting and talking under happier circumstances, but unfortunately, we're in the midst of a really challenging time in our nation's history. And as tensions continue to rise, we're seeing that mobs are taking out. a lot of their anger and frustration on America's statues. Sunday was the 168th anniversary of Frederick Douglass's famous speech, what to the slave is the 4th of July. That was delivered in

Rochester, New York, and the statue of Douglas in Rochester was torn down from its base and badly damaged on this anniversary. And I want to talk a little bit more about that in in just a moment. But first, I'd like to talk about that speech that Douglas delivered in 1852. Can you tell us a little bit about this famous speech and who it was delivered to? Sure. It was a famous speech and it has become even more popular over the last several years. And one of the reasons that I felt the need to write about it is because when I hear people reciting the speech, when I've even seen online copies of the speech, I've noticed that there have been portions of it that have been eliminated.

To be perfectly honest, if you are to search, you will probably more likely to find a copy that does not have it in its entirety than you will to find one in its entirety. And so Douglas gave it in 1852, was kind of set up for him to speak on the 5th, which at the time was customary for African-Americans, to not honor or celebrate the Fourth of July, and they would actually commemorate it

or do things on the fifth. And so Douglas did. He was speaking to largely white audience there in Rochester, most of whom were abolitionists and kind of part of that crowd. So if you think about it, even though in that time period, New York did not have slavery, much of America,

particularly in the South, did have slavery. And so Douglas takes the opportunity to really challenge, you know, what is going on in the culture. As an abolitionist, he laid the hammer down quite hard. Most of the people that day, though, applauded him at the end of his remarks because Douglas always left with hope. And at the end of his speech, he left with hope, hope for America to be something different in the future,

for America to live up to its founding principles and ideals. Yeah, wow, we certainly need that hope today. But like you said, he didn't mince words. He brought the hammer down in the speech. He was very clear. He was very direct. One of the famous lines of the speech reads, what have I or those I represent to do with your national independence are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice embodied in the Declaration of Independence extended to us? This is really a sobering, reality that for so long, July 4th was not a day to celebrate freedom for African Americans. Could you just share a little bit more of your own thoughts on Douglas's words? Sure. You know, America, you know, as it's been said, and I think Douglas would emphasize this, you know, has a complex history. You had people like Christmas addicts who did fight during the Revolutionary War for independence. You did have some free blacks in America. But the reality is that America has that dual foundation where half of it wanted to keep slavery and half of it wanted to be free. And so, you know, Douglas has his own

evolution. When he first escaped from slavery and joined Garrison and the Garrisonians, he believed that the Constitution was something that was a pro-slavery document. He believed, as the Garrisonians did, that America and its founding principles really were not worth revamping or reforming. He felt like that they should be completely done away with. But he, you know, has his evolution and believes that America actually is worth fighting for and is worth holding her to account and ended up stating that, you know, he felt like that the Constitution is a glorious liberty document, he said. He says, read its preamble, consider its purposes. He says, is slavery among them? He says, is it at the gateway or is it at the temple? And goes on to really affirm that the

constitution is, in fact, a pro-liberty document and not a pro-slavery document. And not a pro-slavery document. Wow. Well, and all these years later, you know, obviously just a couple days ago as a nation, we celebrated our freedom and independence on July 4th. And, you know, can you say, and do you think you can kind of speak for the African American and say today, yes, July 4th is seen as as a day of freedom and independence? Or is that maybe another day? No, I, you know, I was raised in this country to think and to know that while America had its challenges and its blemishes, that it was a country fundamentally that had moved forward. I mean, if you think about those founding documents that refer to us as, you know, kind of a more perfect union, this idea that

we could move forward and that we could advance. And that's how I've always seen it. And in fact, I'm reading recently, I believe it was in 1964, 87% of black Americans said that America was worth fighting for. And so I think that the narrative that is being pushed today is one that almost causes us to try to throw out the baby with the bathwater. We certainly have challenges within our culture that we still want to overcome. But America has made great strides and is still the most free country in the world. And I believe that if we commit ourselves to those founding principles and working together, we can see a better America for our children. Well, and how do we go about living in the tension of those true realities? Because you're right.

I mean, my goodness, we've got such a long way as a nation. And it's incredible to see and it's encouraging. But the reality is we do have a dark past of slavery. And we don't want to forget that, but we also don't want to get stuck. So how do we move forward, but also kind of remember the weight of our history? You know, I think that, you know, our organization has firmly been committed to what we call, you know, providing an alternative vision for black progress other than what, say, Black Lives Matter as an organization, not necessarily the movement per se.

There are many, I think, find people who are standing for, you know, taking courageous stands against racism and inequity that they see within our culture. But I think that one, we do ourselves a disservice if we try to sanitize our history. And I think that's exactly what Douglas was doing during his time period. Your listeners would be probably interested to know that Frederick Douglass gave two other famous Independence Day speeches. later, one during the Civil War and one after the Civil War, actually in 1875. And it's something that is very interesting. From this one that he gave in 1852, he actually says, your holiday. But in 1875, he refers to it as our holiday.

And so I think that while we can't sanitize our history, I think, like Douglas, we need to look at the opportunities that are before us. to make meaningful changes. And I believe that though there are segments within our culture that are not really interested in making true progress. And I think all we need to do is to look back just recently at Senator Tim Scott trying to push for an advance meaningful legislation in reforming some of the challenges that we have within our prison system as well as, you know, with police brutality. And And it was met with, you know, harsh words from some on the left. And certainly in the Senate, it was met with deaf ears from Democrats. So I think that we do have to continue to find ways that we can work together to make meaningful progress. But I think we also need to be honest with ourselves that there are elements within our culture that are not really interested in real progress.

Yeah, and that's a hard reality. It's a sad reality. I think that's exactly what we're seeing as we see so many statues be torn down, that that's that fragment that is so just kind of bent on destruction and not actually on progress. On Sunday night, we saw that the statue of Frederick Douglass in Rochester, New York was torn down and it was damaged and probably damaged so badly that it won't be. able to be repaired. What was your first thought when you learned about the defacement of the statue? You know, in our current culture, when you see things come across your social media feed, you tend to think, okay, let me first look and see if this is really real. Because I have a hard time in believing that Frederick Douglass on that weekend, when many people are reciting and remembering his famous speech that in Rochester, one of the first, you know, one of the first, his statues would have been toppled and defaced. So I immediately called our president, who lives, our chapter president for the Frederick Douglass Foundation in New York, who lives in

Rochester, and he says, man, I can't believe it. It is true. And so we released a statement together just last night, you know, number one, you know, saying, you know, we should be clear that, you know, the Frederick Douglass Foundation, particularly our group in New York, do not condone that type of behavior and will stand with the Rochester Police Department and community leaders to hold the perpetrators accountable for their actions. And so it was very sad, very disappointing, but I think helps to really put a magnifying glass on the real reality that there are people within our culture that are more committed to creating chaos than they are solving, problems and finding solutions. And so my hope is that those who did this would be identified

and would be prosecuted and that the city of Rochester can come together to say that we're better than this and really in the spirit of Frederick Douglass work together to see some of the challenges that we're facing in our country resolved. Yeah. Have you ever seen this kind of tension in America before? You know, I think back, certainly not in my adult life. I was born, you know, a few months after Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated. And I do remember, you know, when I was young of my parents talking about how tense the time

period was, people that were burning and looting, how just tragic, you know, that situation was in losing such an icon and hero. But since that time, I can't think of a time. I do remember when, you know, Rodney King was beaten. I do remember other times, but nothing really quite like this, to be honest with you. Wow. Challenging times, definitely. Now, what do you think Frederick Douglass would say if he was here with us today? No, I've thought a lot about this and obviously Douglas as an orator said a lot of things. You know, on the one hand, as I think back to the speech that he gave, the Independence Day speech that he gave in 1875, one of the things he did was he really challenged the African American community. There were certain things that

we needed to do to demonstrate that we were willing to do. We were willing to do. our part to as it relates to self-government, as it relates to holding ourselves accountable and doing everything that we should do to advance our people. But at the same

time, he had hard words to say at that time because there were reforms during reconstruction that were being undermined. And I think that he would challenge us not to compromise our standards, not to

find shortcuts. And in his words, he used agitate, agitate, agitate. And I think that each of us should take heed to those words in our struggle, that we should continue to work hard, continue to identify some of the problems that exist, and to do everything that we can to overcome those challenges, whether it is issues in education that we see, you know, with the disparities in education in urban communities, or whether it is strengthening our families, encouraging fathers to a commitment of responsibility, or whether it's criminal justice reform. If we do see that there are inequities within our justice system, challenges with police brutality, that we should address those things head on as well.

For our parents, grandparents, teachers who are listening and they are talking with their kids and young people in their lives about what is going on right now about this moment in history, what advice would you give to them about how to have honest and open conversations with young people? Yeah, that's really good. You know, I always am an advocate of going back to the source. And so in this case, I think it would be great. for people to read with their kids some of the things that Frederick Douglass said to listen to the words that he said. I've listened to audiobooks. He had three biographies, right, or autobiographies. One was a narrative that he wrote when he had just escaped from slavery. Two, my bondage and my freedom, where he had lived free just as long as he had been a slave. And then

his last autobiography, The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass. I encourage people to read through those. There are so many important lessons that are still applicable to today. So anyway, as a fan and an advocate of Frederick Douglass, I would encourage people to reread and pull out some of the real truths and lessons that were important during his day and reapply them to our culture today. And before we let you go, can you just tell us a little bit about the Frederick Douglas Foundation and what you all do? Absolutely. So the Frederick Douglass Foundation and our C3, nonpartisan nonprofit, the Douglas Leadership Institute, we like to say our tagline is righteousness, justice, liberty, and virtue. We host forums around the country where we highlight those in the local community that are doing meaningful work, providing solutions. And so we advocate for meaningful criminal justice reform.

We advocate for strengthening the black family. We advocate for economic and educational opportunity. And so they can find us at dLinstitute.org or FDFnational.org. There are two organizations. One is a little bit more political and one is a little bit more more cultural. And I think that people would find a lot of value in the work that we do. we release, you know, articles as well as policy reports here from our office in Washington, D.C., advocating for the things that we believe that Mr. Douglas would be advocating for today. Well, Reverend Nelson, thank you so much for the work that you're doing.

We'll be sure to link those sites in today's show notes, and we just really appreciate your time. Thank you so very much. God bless you. And that will do it for today's episode. Thank you for listening. to the Daily Signal podcast, we appreciate your patience as we record remotely during these weeks. Please be sure to subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, or Spotify. And please leave a review or rating on Apple Podcasts and give us your feedback. Stay healthy and we'll be back with you all tomorrow. The Daily Signal podcast is brought to you by more than half a million members of the Heritage Foundation. It is executive produced by Kate Trinko and Rachel Del Judas, sound design by Lauren Evans, Mark Geinney,

and John Pop. For more information, visitdailysignal.com.