By Nancy Spannaus
Feb. 16, 2025—It is with great pleasure that I announce the publication on the AmericanSystemNow You Tube channel of my recent interview with Frederick Douglass. You can access the 35-minute interchange here.
The topic Mr. Douglass and I took up on February 10 was both a timely and controversial one: his assessment of the contribution of President Abraham Lincoln to the cause of ending slavery. Unlike many civil rights advocates today, Mr. Douglass expressed great appreciation for the President’s apparently slow, but definitely determined actions to provide freedom for the enslaved.
While the interview topic was President Lincoln, many listeners will probably find themselves equally intrigued by what they learn about Mr. Douglass. Americans know far too little about this heroic figure, who rose from slavery to be one of our nation’s greatest orators, and a fierce combatant on behalf of both the enslaved and the principles embodied in our Founding documents.
Once you have gotten a taste of Mr. Douglass’s thinking in the interview, I encourage you to explore this blog for the numerous other posts on this extraordinary man’s career. It might interest you to know that by far the most popular article in recent years has been the one entitled “Frederick Douglass: Knowledge Unfits a Man to be a Slave.”
“Frederick Douglass”
Nathan Richardson, the man who represents Frederick Douglass in this interview, is a long-time living history performance artist, author, and poet, who has been touring as a self-proclaimed understudy of the great man for 10 years. He particularly delights in speaking to young audiences in the schools, where he can inspire them with Douglass’s story and with the uplifting power of poetry.
Richardson is a native of Suffolk, Virginia and a 22-year retired veteran of the United States Army. He is the author of three poetry books. Among his major projects for 2024-25 is a memoir of his journey in the portrayal of Frederick Douglass, to be entitled Becoming Douglass. Richardson can be reached via this link.
My heartfelt thanks to “Mr. Douglass” for joining me in this venture. I hope to talk with him again about some of the thorny issues facing our nation, where his wisdom could play a valuable role.
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Tags: Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, Nancy Spannaus, Nathan Richardson
