President Obama vs Fredrick Douglass

There has been no time as trying in the United States of America, as was the 1800s and as comparatively fulfilling as the 2000s. The former was when the abolition of slavery and crusade on manumission was just ‘hotting’ up, the latter has had the near ‘impossible’ happen. The dream has been realized and lived. The first African-American President has been elected by a popular mandate to lead the most powerful nation in the world. The world awakes to the 44th newly elect US President Barack Hussein Obama.

Though consistent, the relentless forge for the improvement of African people in the American continent is far from over. This fact is commonly known among the coloured nations in America today. President Barack Obama, has been cited to have acknowledged the struggle that preceded his historical victory by saying that he wouldn’t be where he’s today were it not that t[his] torch been passed from generation to generation. He does not however promise in on manner of way to erase the past that has made his bones. No leader can turn the wheels of time at least no black leader can overcome such expectation.

Fredrick Douglass comes to mind. Often romanticized in American literature as the “first African president”, Douglass probably comes close to what Obama might relate to in terms of the political power, centre of attention and eloquence at speech. Douglass could have probably shaped events differently if he ran for office then. But during his time running away from lynching mobs of the South was the most preoccupation many Negroes had in mind. The Negro suffrage that he was actively involved in would have had him turning in his grave had it not been for what the Obama’s campaign aimed at. Simply getting new voting-aged black youngsters to register and for all to vote.

Barack Obama is as was Douglass, a mutt, though I don’t think he would have approved as much as he would stomach being called a nigger. Both pretty much raised by their mothers with their grandmothers playing the most influential parts in their upbringing. Tracing their kin to Native American heritage Obama and Douglass find and found it easy to amass the confidence to mobilize the citizenry towards causes he feels and felt should head. Obama’s chequered community organization goes to show that leaders are not made but are born made not made ready but already made. On the other hand Douglass contravened a law that stated that any marshalling of a Negro army battalion would lead to imprisonment and or attract a death sentence during the 1860s civil war. Despite this ordinance it didn’t deter him from aiding in recruiting the 54^th Massachusetts Regiment in preparation for the standoff at Wagner.

Both leaders have had to fight their own battles at their own time. Howbeit similar in calling they have been able to seamlessly made it look like the same battle has to be fought again as long as the torch’s flame still burns and the disfranchise, discrimination and stereotyping ceases not by man’s own free and good will.

Picture: Page iv Race,Class and Party – A history of Negro suffrage and White politics in the South by Paul Lewinson