Frederick Douglass: From Enslavement to Abolitionist

Posted on 28 October, 2021 by nspeccoll

*Frederick Douglass, photograph by an unidentified artist, c.1850, National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution,* *https://npg.si.edu/object/npg_NPG.80.21*

Frederick Douglass’ story as a black American started in the same way as many others of his era, born into slavery. Thanks to his determination and good luck he was able to escape the lifelong toil that many of his fellow black Americans endured, educate himself and then tell his story highlighting the plight of fighting for the rights of black Americans. The story of his life includes a journey to the UK, and Newcastle, where he would meet a local family that had a lasting impact on his ability to live a free life in America.

Frederick Douglass was born into slavery in 1818 on a plantation in Talbot, Maryland. His father was white, and possibly the ‘owner’ of his mother. He was removed from his mother as a young child, and only had limited contact with her prior to her death, while Douglass was still a child. After being a slave for a number of years he escaped from his owner in Baltimore on the 3^rd of September 1838 and travelled to New York. Once there he set about educating himself and eventually telling his story through an autobiography.

In 1845 ‘The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave: written by himself’ was published. This detailed his early life, escape from slavery, and new life as a free man. Across the Atlantic and during the early years of Douglass’ life, the Whig government in Britain (led by Earl Grey II who hailed from Northumberland) passed the Slavery Abolition Act in 1833. This act would make owning a slave in much of the British Empire illegal by 1840.

In August 1845 Frederick Douglass sailed across the Atlantic to Great Britain to promote his cause. A review of his book was published in July 1846 in the Newcastle Guardian. The review highlights in critical terms, the American ‘institution of slavery’ and introduces his story and selected quotes from his work.

Excerpt from pg5 of Review of the Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass, written by himself, 19thCentury Collection 942.8 REV The full review can be found at https://cdm21051.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p21051coll23/id/96/rec/15

*Plaque at 5 Summerhill Grove, Newcastle upon Tyne commemorating Frederick Douglass and the anti-slavery activists with whom he stayed whilst in Newcastle*

During his 19 month stay in Britain he toured the country giving public lectures detailing his life, slavery in America and promoting abolition. This included a short stay in Newcastle, at the home of Henry and Anna Richardson and their sister-in-law Ellen. They were Quakers who lived in a house on Summerhill Grove near the city centre. His stay, and the impact the family had on Douglass’ life is commemorated by a plaque on the house. He made such an impact on the Richardson’s that they set about raising £150 and instructed a lawyer in America to formerly buy Douglass’ freedom from his former enslaver in late 1846.

Near the end of his tour of Britain Douglass was invited to give a farewell speech at the London Tavern on the 30^th of March 1847 by the Council of the Anti-Slavery League. They later published a transcript of the speech he gave, a copy of which forms part of Special Collection’s Cowen Tracts Collection, collected by Joseph Cowen, a 19^th Century reformist MP from Newcastle. You can read more about the life of Joseph Cowen here.

In his speech at the London Tavern Frederick Douglass covers a number of topics. He covers the American constitution, the slave keeping system and references the abolition of slavery in Canada which had been enacted by Earl Grey’s government.

Caption: Excerpt from Farewell Speech of Mr Frederick Douglass previously to Embarking on Board the Cambria, upon his Return to America March 30, 1847, pg14, Cowen Tracts, Vol.17, No.12, https://collectionscaptured.ncl.ac.uk/digital/collection/p21051coll85/id/58/rec/1

He went on to talk about the purchase of his freedom by the Richardson’s saying:

… As to the kind friends who have made the purchase of my freedom, I am deeply grateful to them. I would never have solicited them to have done so, or have asked them for money for such a purpose. I never could have suggested to them the propriety of such an act. It was done from the prompting or suggestion of their own hearts, entirely independent of myself…. (Cowen Tracts, Vol.17, No.12, pg16)

Later in his speech he went on to recount his feelings and experience of the 19 months he spent in Britain, contrasting it with the conditions he encountered in Boston before he boarded the Cambria and travelled across the Atlantic:

… I say that I have here, within the last nineteen months, for the first time in my life, known what it was to enjoy liberty. I remember, just before leaving Boston for this country, that I was even refused permission to ride in an omnibus. Yes, on account of the colour of my skin, I was kicked from a public conveyance just a few days before I left the “cradle of liberty”. (Cowen Tracts, Vol.17, No.12, pg19)

Caption: Caption: Excerpt from Farewell Speech of Mr Frederick Douglass previously to Embarking on Board the Cambria, upon his Return to America March 30, 1847, pg19, Cowen Tracts, Vol.17, No.12, https://collectionscaptured.ncl.ac.uk/digital/collection/p21051coll85/id/58/rec/1

He also recounts his experience of being refused entry to churches in Boston and not being permitted to “even to go into a menagerie or theatre, if I wished to have gone there” (Pg 19) and that “I was not granted any of these common and ordinary privileges of free men.” (pg 20).

He concluded his speech by explaining his hopes and plans for his return to America saying:

…I go, turning my back upon the ease, comfort, and respectability which I might maintain even here, ignorant as I am. Still, I will go back, for the sake of my brethren. I go to suffer with them; to toil with them; to endure insult with them; to undergo outrage with them; to lift up my voice in their behalf; to speak and write in their vindication; and struggle in their ranks for that emancipation which shall yet be achieved by the power of truth and of principle for the oppressed people… (Cowen Tracts, Vol.17, No.12, pg21)

The speech he gave at the London Tavern gives us a valuable insight in Frederick Douglass’ own words of his experiences of slavery, how he valued the time he spent in Britain and the people that met and supported him while here. It also demonstrates that though he was now free himself he saw his future in helping his enslaved brethren, using his platform to promote their cause and work towards their emancipation, even if that meant experiencing the racial prejudices of 19^th Century America.

On the 4^th of April Frederick Douglass embarked the Cambria to travel across the Atlantic back to the United States. On boarding he was informed that the birth he had booked was occupied and that he would not be allowed to mix with the other passengers on account of his colour. After returning to America he would go on to spend the next 50 years working and campaigning for the rights of black Americans and women. He died in Washington DC, aged 77 in February 1895. Newcastle University’s Frederick Douglass Building, close to where he stayed during his time in Newcastle, is named in his honour.

Excerpt from Farewell Speech of Mr Frederick Douglass previously to Embarking on Board the Cambria, upon his Return to America March 30, 1847, pg14, Cowen Tracts, Vol.17, No.12, https://collectionscaptured.ncl.ac.uk/digital/collection/p21051coll85/id/58/rec/1

Di Great Insohreckshan by Linton Kwesi Johnson

Posted on 25 October, 2021 by nspeccoll

“Writing was a political act and poetry was a cultural weapon…”

So stated the renowned Jamaican dub poet, recording-artist and activist Linton Kwesi Johnson (b. 24 August 1952). Based in the United Kingdom since 1963, in 2002 he became the second living poet, and the only black poet, to be published in the Penguin Modern Classics series.

In the Bloodaxe Books Archive, Special Collections holds a set of proofs for Linton Kwesi Johnson’s 1991 poetry anthology Tings an Times which accompanied an album of the same name. Amongst the proofs resides this draft typescript of Johnson’s great dub poem Di Great Insohreckshan which he famously wrote as a response to the Brixton Uprising which took place 40 years ago this year, in April 1981. The poem first featured on his album Making History in 1983.

Typescript draft of *Di Great Insohreckshan* by Linton Kwesi Johnson prepared for his anthology *Tings an Times* published by Bloodaxe Books (Bloodaxe Books Archive, BXB-1-1-JOL-1-3-1&2)

Dub poetry, a term coined by Johnson himself, was a form of performance poetry of West Indian origin, written to be spoken out loud against a backdrop of reggae music.

Watch Linton Kwesi Johnson performing Di Great Insohreckshan.

The Brixton Uprising, also referred to as the Brixton Riots, took place 10-12 April 1981. It was the first large-scale racial confrontation between black British youth and white British police. The rioting was sparked by decades of injustices experienced by black people in the UK.

Next month will see the fortieth anniversary of the publication of the Scarman Report, commissioned by the UK government in response to the Brixton Uprising. Amongst other conclusions, the Report found there to be unquestionable evidence of the disproportionate and indiscriminate use of ‘stop and search’ powers by the police against young black people and placed the Brixton Uprising into the context of the racial disadvantage faced by them.

Linton Kwesi Johnson’s poetry is deeply political in its nature, dealing mainly with the experiences of being an African-Caribbean in Britain. Written and spoken in Jamaican Creole English, Di Great Insohreckshan railed against the injustice and oppression which brought about the tensions leading to the Brixton Uprising, giving full vent to black people’s anger and highlighting the government’s political failure.

When first performed, Di Great Insohreckshan grabbed and demanded the attention of those who heard it, with its intense, urgent, streetwise and intellectual delivery. Forty years on the poem is held to stand alongside TV and radio archive as a primary source in its own right, helping future generations understand the cultural and political upheaval that led to the Brixton Uprising of 1981.

Black History Month – Oct 2020

Posted on 23 October, 2020 by nspeccoll

Newcastle University Library’s Special Collections and Archives include several collections which contain materials with relevance to race equality issues. These are highlighted below, together with contextual resources such as blogposts and online exhibitions.

Collections

Jack Mapanje Archive

Jack Mapanje was born in Malawi in 1944, growing up in Kadango village in the Mangochi district.

Photograph of Jack Mapanje. Image attribution: Amnesty International, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0, via Flickr

He first started to write poetry from despair at the political situation in Malawi; his first collection, Of Chameleons and Gods, was published in the UK in 1981 by Heinemann. The collection was critically acclaimed around the world, but withdrawn from circulation in Malawi in June 1985 by the government of dictator Hastings Banda. In September 1987, Jack was arrested and detained without charge or trial in Mikuyu Prison in Malawi. During his imprisonment, Of Chameleons and Gods won the Rotterdam Poetry International Award in 1988, and Jack was subsequently also awarded the PEN/Barbara Goldsmith Freedom to Write Award in 1990, recognising his fight for freedom of expression. Despite an international campaign by numerous writers, linguists, and human rights activists, including Harold Pinter, Wole Soyinka, Susan Sontag, and Noam Chomsky amongst others, Jack was not released until May 1991, and was given no explanation of his detention. During his time in prison, he wrote his second collection of poetry, The Chattering Wagtails of Mikuyu Prison (1993), and much of his third, Skipping without Ropes (1998).

Extract from a letter written by Jack Mapanje to David Kerr whilst a prisoner in Mikuyu Prison in Malawi (Jack Mapanje Archive, MAP/6/3/43)

After leaving Malawi with his wife and children, Jack settled in Britain, where he has lived ever since, and has held numerous prestigious posts in universities, the first of these being a fellowship at the University of York in 1992. He was later an Honorary Visiting Professional Fellow in the School of English at the University of Leeds, where he taught a degree course between 1993 and 1996, and edited the collection Gathering Seaweed: African Prison Writing (2002) based on this course. Jack held a Royal Literary Fund Fellowship at Leeds Trinity University from 1999–2001, and has since held a post as Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing and Literatures of Incarceration at Newcastle University. Most recently, he was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Bedfordshire in 2015 and has held a Visiting Professorship post in the Faculty of Arts at York St John University.

In the Mapanje (Jack) Archive we hold material relating to his poetic works, items relating to his academic career in both Malawi and the UK, and perhaps most interestingly, correspondence written during and after his time held as prisoner of conscience.

You can find out more about his life and career in the blogpost ‘Jack Mapanje – poet and prisoner of conscience‘.

Anne Walmsley Archive

A specialist in Caribbean art and literature, Anne Walmsley is a British editor, scholar, critic and author. Anne started her career in the late 1950s when she worked as a secretary for Faber and Faber.

Typescript draft of Caribbean Dancers [Walmsley (Anne) Archive, AW/1/2/3/5]

Anne Walmsley participated in the Caribbean Artists Movement (CAM), founded in 1966 by Kamau Braithwaite, John La Rose and Andrew Salkey. In 1985 she was awarded a Leverhulme Fellowship to research CAM and in 1992 she was awarded a Ph.D. from the University of Kent for her thesis on this, which was also published as a book entitled The Caribbean Artists Movement: A Literary and Cultural History, 1966-1971.

Anne Walmsley has contributed to a range of journals, literary magazines, exhibition catalogues and anthologies. The Walmsley (Anne) Archive holds a range of material including letters and reports from her time at Longman’s, her scrapbook from teaching at Westwood, research on CAM, and research on a range of Caribbean artists.

Highlights from the collection include:

Several titles published by Margaret Busby OBE, Britain’s youngest & first black female book publisher. Titles include, And Still I Rise (2006) and CLR James’s 80th birthday lectures (1984).

Photograph of Margaret Busby. Image attribution Andy Mabbett, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The critically acclaimed debut novel, In the Castle of My Skin (1953), the critically acclaimed debut novel of Bajan novelist, essayist and poet George Lamming (b. 1927).

Photograph of George Lamming. Image attribution: Public domain

Bloodaxe Books Archive

The Bloodaxe Books archive is considered one of the most exciting archives for contemporary poetry that exists. The material in the collection includes 592 boxes of original typescripts, editorial work, correspondence and examples of marketing, business and financial records dating from the 1970’s to the present day. These records represent authors and books that have won virtually every major literary award given to poetry, including the T.S. Eliot Prize, Pulitzer Prize and Nobel Prize. Bloodaxe is also known for its work with translated collections and American poetry, and have published responsively to cultural change in Britain, publishing some of the finest writers in the British-Caribbean and South-Asian diaspora. Another significant achievement is that Bloodaxe publish more female writers than any other British poetry publisher, at a 50:50 male:female ratio. The company has opened up poetry to thousands of new readers and the material held in the archive demonstrates how Bloodaxe Books has been able to achieve this.

Front cover of 'Middle Passages' written by Anne Walmsley — Front cover of ‘Middle Passages’ written by Anne Walmsley [Bloodaxe Books Collection]

Bloodaxe Books Collection

The Bloodaxe Books Collection consists of poetry, prose, translations and critical work published by the company since its inception in 1978.

Want to find out more about some of the poets that Bloodaxe Books represents? Check out ‘Contemporary Poetry Collections: poets and their archives‘ on the blog.

Front cover of ‘Europa’ writtwen by Moniza Alvi — Front cover of ‘Europa’ written by Moniza Alvi [Bloodaxe Books Collection, 821.914 ALV]

Joseph Cowen Tracts

The Cowen (Joseph) Tracts are almost two thousand pamphlets which were formerly owned by local (radical) M.P., Joseph Cowen (1829-1900). The tracts date mostly from the mid- to late-Nineteenth Century and reflect Cowen’s interest in the social, educational, political and economic issues of the day.

Political cartoon of ‘After the ballot’ — *‘After the ballot’* [A volume of printed ephemera, broadsides, posters, cartoons, referring to election in Northumberland, Necwcastle and Tyneside divisions, 1826-1931] (RB 942.8 ELE Quarto, Rare Books Collection)

Included in the pamphlets are subjects on abolition and the slave trade, including material relating to Frederick Douglass. Douglass was born into slavery c. 1818 on a plantation in Talbot County, Maryland, USA. He became one of the most famous intellectuals of his time. He advised Presidents and lectured to thousands on a range of causes, including women’s rights and Irish Home Rule. On 3 September 1838, Douglass escaped from slavery in Baltimore. He disguised himself as a sailor and headed north, travelling by train and boat, first to Philadelphia, then on to New York. Find out more about Frederick Douglass and Newcastle on the University’s website. You can find material from the Cowen Tracts, relating to Douglass on the library catalogue.

Black and white photograph of William Douglass — Photograph of Frederick Douglass

Pamphlets were an effective form of public debate because they could be circulated to a wider audience than books and authors could remain anonymous. Other subjects include discussions around Irish politics, foreign policy, women’s rights, religion, education and public health and include such titles as The Union programme for 1880: constructive, not destructive, Irish legislation [1879?], Are women fit for politics?: are politics fit for women [185-] and The education of the agricultural labourer: a paper read before the Morpeth Chamber of Agriculture, on Wednesday, Feb. 2, 1870 by M.W. Ridley (1870).

2nd Earl Grey Tracts

The Grey (2nd Earl) Tracts reflect the interests of their former owner, the 2nd Earl Grey (1764-1845) whose Whig government was responsible for the 1832 Reform Act, 1833 Factory Act and the 1834 Poor Law Amendment Act.

The pamphlets cover a broad range of historical, social and economic subjects including colonial policy, public finance and banking, the Corn Laws and agriculture, poor relief, slavery, Catholicism, Ireland and the Greek Revolution.

Digital Resources and Blog Posts

Martin Luther King at Newcastle University

A digital exhibition tells the story of the civil rights campaigner Dr Martin Luther King Jr., receiving an honorary degree at Newcastle University in November 1967 using original photographs and documents from the University Archives.

Photograph of Martin Luther King signing the University's visitors' book, 13 November 1967 — Martin Luther King signing the University’s visitors’ book, 13 November 1967 (University Archives, NUA/052589-5)

Dr Martin Luther King Memorial Service

Dr Martin Luther was assassinated shortly after 6pm on 4^th April 1968, King was short dead in Memphis, Tennessee. He was just 39 years old. This is a blog post on the memorial service for Dr Martin Luther King, held at St. Thomas’ Church, Haymarket in Newcastle, 1968.

E.M. Bettenson, “Dr. Martin Luther King,” announcement, 22 April, 1968 (University Archives, NUA/00-7621/3/21)

Books We Forgot to Remember: the radical tradition in British children’s literature of the early twentieth century

A blog post from Newcastle University students about the radical tradition in British children’s literature of the early twentieth century. This includes the includes the book, Blue Peter, which was written to tell a tale of marginalised minorities at the time of its production during the World War II.

A member of the SA throws confiscated books into the bonfire during the public burning of “un-German” books on the Opernplatz in Berlin (image not from Newcastle University Library Special Collections and Archives)

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