Douglass uses many other techniques to try to show the humanity of slaves, and thus prove that they, too, have a right to freedom. He relates very personal experiences to his audience and creates emotional scenes in which to display the emotions and hardships of slaves, in the hope that his readers recognize these situations as similar to those that they themselves have experienced. In an especially poignant scene written to display strong emotion, but also showing his desire for freedom, Douglass cries while watching sailboats on the ocean, “O, that I were on one of your gallant decks, and under your protecting wing! Alas! betwixt me and you, the turbid waters roll….O, why was I born a man, of whom to make a brute!…Let me be free!” (Douglass 38). The utter depression and loneliness expressed in his sentiments was, though no doubt sincere, included in his narrative to convince his readers that slaves, though apparently far different from whites, could indeed feel emotion and desire freedom. Douglass openly declares that he believes himself to be human, equal to a white man, and that slavery had brutalized himself and the minds of America into thinking that he was not equal to whites.
Alberry Alston Whitman, a poet born into slavery, wrote about his definition of freedom in the late 19th century. In dismay of the lack of real progress made in the rights of African Americans during Reconstruction, Whitman writes that “Freedom’s real and intrinsic costs” are “[f]ree schools, free press, free speech and equal laws” (Sherman 32). In other words, freedom means legal and social equality: “free” or unsegregated public schools, freedom of the press and freedom of speech, two rights guaranteed by the Constitution, and, most importantly, equality under the law, also guaranteed under the Constitution. Freedom of press and speech, and legal equality, despite having been expanded to include African Americans just after the Civil War, were not practiced in much of America during Whitman’s time. Whitman calls for “[a] common country and a common cause” (Sherman 32), desiring to bring together the North and South under a banner of freedom and equality. He points out that without equality “[f]reedom is an empty name,/[a]nd war-worn glory is an empty shame” (Sherman 32). Whitman believes that freedom comes from equality. He sees that though blacks are legally equal to whites, in practice they are not given the same advantages. Their schools are second-rate, they are intimidated or physically forced out of politics and government in both the North and the South, and they are held back from better opportunities by the old systems of oppression.
The freedom envisioned by W.E.B. Du Bois is much like the freedom of Whitman. He too believes that freedom means equality and opportunity for all. He resents people like Booker T. Washington, who say that whites and blacks can be “[i]n all things purely social…separate as five fingers” (Du Bois 26), and calls for immediate social equality. He wants “the freedom of life and limb, the freedom to work and think, [and] the freedom to love and aspire” (Du Bois 7). He desires that the black man (and woman) to be able to be physically, mentally, and emotionally free. “[T]he freedman has not yet found in freedom his promised land” (Du Bois 4), he is free legally and the “promised land” of emancipation, has come, but after emancipation Du Bois claims, the American Negro still has not found freedom. For Du Bois, freedom is the possibility “for a man to be both a Negro and an American, without being cursed and spit upon by his fellows, without having the doors of Opportunity closed roughly in his face” (Du Bois 3). Du Bois’ freedom entails that the American Negro be able to be himself, be able to reconcile the Negro and the American in him without feeling the hatred and oppression of American people.
Throughout United States history, African Americans have struggled to define and gain freedom. As African Americans individually, and as a culture, caught glimpses of freedom through the chains of slavery and oppression, they desired more, and modified their definition of freedom and their goals. The freedom Douglass felt when learning to read, and his abolitionist sentiments as a result of feeling this freedom, was simpler in some ways than Du Bois’ multi-faceted plans to change the entire cultural, psychological and political landscape of America after his own acquirement of knowledge. Du Bois’ definition and his plan of action covered many aspects that were not as obvious to the average person as emancipation was. Though the definition of freedom had been modified a great deal as culture and circumstances changed, it has still remained the main focus of African American culture and politics.
