Donald Trump said of Frederick Douglass at the outset of Black History Month in February of 2017, “Frederick Douglass is an example of somebody who’s done an amazing job and is being recognized more and more, I notice,”said Trump.It is widely believed Mr. Trump thought the orator, writer, and abolitionist was still alive. Of course, Mr. Douglass died in 1895. The former president also went on to mention Rosa Parks and Harriet Tubman. I have no doubts Mr. Trump may have thought Ms. Parks refused to give up her seat to a white man on Tubman’s underground railroad. If that assessment sounds overly critical or far-fetched, remember Mr. Trump talked about airports during the American Revolution. “Our army manned the air, it rammed the ramparts, it took over airports, it did everything it had to do,”the former president said.
Mr. Trump, unable to admit a mistake, told Fox News he memorized the speech and knew it well, but either a mistake in the teleprompter or rain caused his gaffe.
“I knew the speech very well,”the president said, according to Fox News. “So I was able to do without a teleprompter, but the teleprompter did go out, and it was actually hard to look at anyway because [there] was rain all over it.”Given another chance, I am sure he would have said the dog ate his homework.
One crucial issue that affects the current climate against African American studies—said to be of no use by Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida, saying AP African America studies are “inexplicably contrary to Florida law and significantly lacks educational value,”said DeSantis. Mr. Trump’s apparent ignorance of history makes him a candidate for the history Mr. DeSantis would like to obliterate. Declaring war on history because one lacks the courage to face it or teach their children is a new low in discrimination. Ironically, one way black people were kept enslaved was by denying them education. The vestiges of which are still present. I thought of Mr. Douglass today because it is seven days past the day he chose to celebrate his birth—February 14. Aside from Valentine’s Day, he chose the day because the lives of blacks were so insignificant, and keeping accurate records of births and deaths were inconsequential. I am unsure if it can be explained what it is like to have your very existence changed for perpetuity because of the vile practice of slavery.
Unlike Irish-Americans, German-Americans, Italian-Americans, and countless others, genealogy tests exist to trace one’s heritage from the old countries to the first steps off the boat on American soil. A strange question enters my thoughts when I meet a white person who shares my surname; did their forebearer own mine? I do not feel anger or resentment, just a sense of loss. I know—when my ancestors stepped off the boat after months of travel in the bowels of a slave ship, half-starved, barefoot, and reeking with the smell of death and poor sanitation, no one was named Nichols, Floyd or Taylor. History was destroyed once for greed, ignorance, and abject cruelty; let us not do it again.
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