The life of Douglass, Blight says, contains “a tremendous set of lessons for today, whatever issue we’re discussing in this wildly diverse and amazing country we have here but a country completely divided. But it’s also true that readers always seek parallels with their own lives and times.
It may be a cliche to say history teaches us to avoid the mistakes of the past, not least because we never do. And I get asked this at talk after talk: ‘What would Douglass do about Trump?’ Or, ‘What about Douglass can we think of and use now?’” I get asked this at talk after talk: ‘What would Douglass do about Trump?’ “He’s the subtext of almost anything,” he says, “whether we like it or not. In conversation, he duly concedes that the work of any historian is now coloured by the trials of the Trumpian age. Blight has already given his take: to the Washington Post on “the dangers of presidential ignorance” for the Guardian on Trump as “the gift that keeps on giving”. In February last year, marking Black History Month, Trump said: “Frederick Douglass is an example of somebody who’s done an amazing job and is getting recognized more and more, I notice.”Īs with anything the billionaire tweets or blurts, ballyhoo and controversy followed. He laughs again when I mention Donald Trump. It’s easy to imagine his subject saying as he does: “There are times I wonder, ‘Did I already say that to this audience? No, I said that yesterday.’”īlight laughs. Now he’s riding the rails, speaking from town to town.
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