- The School of Civic and Economic thought and leadership presents the Civic Discourse Project Civics, patriotism, and America's prospects.

This week - He motivated black Americans to strive to improve themselves even before unjust barriers to their freedom were removed.

Challenged White America to conquer its prejudices, to rise to the dignity of its professions.

- The Civic Discourse Project is brought to you by Arizona State University's School of Civic and economic thought and leadership.

And now Lucas e Morrell, the John k Boardman Junior Professor of Politics at the Washington and Lee University discusses two models of patriotism, Frederick Douglass and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. - I'm here to speak about two great American patriots, Frederick Douglass, and of course Martin Luther King Jr.

They might seem an odd choice to discuss patriotism as both men became famous by criticizing the land of their birth.

While their criticisms of America have a lot in common, I think we will see a difference in their understanding of what the country of their birth owes them, owes all Americans, and therefore what each sought in terms of Justice.

Douglass was not alone in his critical appreciation of America in the face of pervasive racial bigotry.

Africans on American soil and their descendants nevertheless became Americans.

Denied the vote most of the time in most of the American colonies, and then states Black still bought into the concept of government by consent of the government as the only legitimate basis of government denied membership in most American churches.

Most of the time blacks still converted to the Christian faith as Douglass put it.

Our hearts believed while they ached and bled, blacks had taken America at her word.

All men are created equal and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved.

They were intent on making a life for themselves and preparing a future for their posterity in the United States.

After marry a thousand gone, if America was not the land of these black generations, what land could be.

Douglass was unwilling to let their great labor and sacrifice go unappreciated and unrewarded his ancestors.

For 270 years, Douglass declared have lived and labored and died on American soil despite much of what white American legal and social practice that gave black Americans plenty of reasons not to love the land of their birth.

Douglas placed great stock in how much blacks had contributed to the development of America despite the inhospitable and ungrateful country.

Therefore, black Americans could, he thought look to an American past for a heritage to claim as their own a country they could call theirs as well.

They had a stake in making America live up to its nobless ideals and aspirations.

Douglass's approach to fighting for American freedom can be seen in his 1845 narrative where he's describes his decision to resist a flogging at the hands of an overseer named Edward Covey.

Mr.

Covey seemed now to think he had me could do what he pleased.

But at this moment from when came the spirit, I don't know.

I resolved to fight, suiting my action to the resolution.

I seized Covey hard by the throat and as I did so, I rose Douglass called this the turning point of his career as a slave.

When he resolved that however long I might remain a slave in form, the day had passed forever when I could be a slave.

In fact, I did not hesitate to let it be known of me that the white man who expected to succeed in whipping must also succeed in killing me.

In his 1855 autobiography, my bondage and my Freedom, Douglass commented that he had reached the point at which he was not afraid to die.

This spirit made him, as he put it, a free man.

In fact, while he remained a slave in form, he took the measure of his oppressive circumstances, most especially his God-given freedom as a human being determined not to remain simply a victim of his environment.

For Douglass, freedom began within oneself, not with a change.

In one's circumstances, each person must recognize and affirm his or her natural God-given right to his freedom.

A favorite quote of his that encapsulated this mindset came from Lord Byron hereditary bondsman No ye, that whoever would be free must himself first strike the blow.

Douglass would pursue his own liberation and that of his fellow bondsmen, eventually making a career of reminding Americans that the principles of the declaration applied to all human beings.

Therefore, all Americans, regardless of race, deserve the equal protection of their common constitution.

Remarkably enough, the writings of slaveholders like Washington, Jefferson, and Madison taught Douglass that the only relevant minority in America was the minority of one.

The individual whose natural and civil rights were the same as those of the political majority.

In Douglass's words, color should not be a criterion of rights, A steadfast believer in equality under the law, he did not think race should be the measure of anyone's constitutional rights.

Douglass believed in fact that an emphasis upon race was a losing proposition for black people in America.

Instead of equal protection of the laws, Douglas declared quote, you lay down a rule for the black man that you applied to no other class of your citizens.

End quote, he said that black Americans only ask to be allowed to do with ourselves subject only to the same great laws for the welfare of human society, which applied to other men.

So when he was asked the misbegotten absurd question, what shall be done with the Negro?

As it was said at that time, he answered, let us alone do nothing with us, for us or by us as a particular class.

Anything that made blacks a special case in the public eye would undermine.

He thought their equality as American citizens and as human beings.

This actually reinforced a white supremacy mindset.

He did not see how the myth of white supremacy could be dispelled if blacks were exempted from the rules that apply to everyone else with color prejudice as the great enemy of black progress in the United States, most of Douglass's efforts on behalf of civil and political rights were directed towards promoting policies that eliminated government distinctions based on race.

Instead of living as an exception to the rules that applied to others, Douglass thought black Americans actually should integrate with the majority white population as much as possible.

They should endeavor as he put it, to make ourselves and be made by others.

A part of the American people in every sense of the word whites, needed to recognize that their destiny was tied up with the destiny of blacks.

And so Douglass encouraged blacks to avoid what we call today, self-segregation.

We should distribute ourselves among the people build our houses where if they take fire, other houses will be in danger.

Common dangers will create common safeguards near the end of his life.

He argued it is better to regard ourselves as a part of the whole than as the whole of a part better to be a member of the great human family than a member of a particular variety of the human family.

In regard to men as in regard to things, the whole is more than a part, and so in his day, he exhorted blacks to become members and leaders of organizations and institutions that had been run by white people.

They could then learn how these organizations and institutions operate, gain experience skills best of all, work alongside whites, which would afford examples of character and competence on the part of blacks that would chip away at white prejudice.

For Douglass, the way to eliminate racial bigotry was to become a part of the wholeness upon which America was founded.

This led him to preach the principles of human equality and the rights of American citizenship.

Here let American history provide the lesson.

If the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments required a black majority in Congress in order to pass, let alone to be ratified by the states, how secure would the rights of black Americans be?

How much political progress would the nation have made if color not citizenship?

Race, not humanity, characterized the political practice of America.

Surely the progress Americans have made on this front had everything to do with the principle of equality taking hold over more and more Americans, most of whom were white.

In 1954.

There were no black justices on the Supreme Court that issued the unanimous nine zero opinion Brown v Board of Education in 1964.

There were no black senators when the Civil Rights Act was passed.

Ditto for the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

Precious few black representatives in either case, Douglass in his time, appreciated the labors of well-meaning white Americans.

Over his many years of political activism, observing of famous white abolitionists, neither Phillips nor Sumner nor Garrison, nor John Brown nor Garrett Smith was a black man.

He added that no black man were ever truer to the black man's cause than these and other men like them.

If white supremacy was immutable, none of these landmark advances in the laws and judicial decisions of the federal government would've occurred in becoming an American and then speaking and writing for half a century.

On behalf of the equal rights of humanity and citizenship of black Americans, Douglas helped America become a better version of itself.

He motivated black Americans to strive to improve themselves even before unjust barriers to their freedom were removed, challenged white America to conquer its prejudices, to rise to the dignity of its professions.

To do so.

Douglas culmination back to its founding the principles of the declaration, the levers of freedom in the Constitution.

These he thought were the surest guide to the equal protection of every American's civil and political rights.

Now, our traditional understanding of King shares much with Douglass's understanding of the promise of America's founding principles and institutions.

Exhibit A.

As mentioned earlier, king's, I have a dream speech which justly ranks among the most famous speeches in American history, delivered on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.

King's keynote address was heard by over a quarter million people gathered for the march on Washington for jobs and freedom.

King declared that the goals of the modern civil rights movement were simply to make real the promises of democracy.

He found these promises in the declaration and the Constitution.

What he called a dream deeply rooted in the American dream was based upon a faith both biblical and constitutional, that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed.

We hold these trues to be self-evident that all men are created equal.

In 1963, king found the clearest path forward for progress in civil and political rights for black Americans by looking to what had already been declared constituted put into operation by the efforts of blacks and whites seconded as he understood it, by the eternal will of God.

King would repeat these oes to America's founding fathers and principles and later speeches.

But unlike Frederick Douglass King did not find these principles and institutions established at the founding sufficient for black progress in the United States.

After that pivotal year of 1963, even as the landmark Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act took effect, he began to call more explicitly for a radical revisioning of American purpose and process.

His model of American patriotism looked beyond what America had to offer to date.

King called the Declaration of Independence in the Constitution, a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir.

As far as her citizens of color are concerned, he said America had defaulted.

On that note and speaking for the assembled multitude, he said they had come to the nation's capital to cash a check.

He was speaking figuratively when he said that they should get upon demand, the riches of freedom and the security of justice.

But it was not long before he would turn from figures of speech to arguments for policies that had everything to do with cashing a literal check.

Only a year after his I have a Dream speech.

King expressed serious doubts that in his day, the principles of the declaration, the mechanisms of the Constitution even amended after the Civil War and the goodwill of majority White America would be sufficient.

Even with the passage of Landmark Civil Rights Acts, he believed something more, not just in terms of legislation, but in terms of new principles and structural changes would be necessary to bring about what he called the realization or fulfillment of equality in why we can't wait.

Published in 1964 and especially, where do we go from here, chaos or community published in 1967, king proposed a national agenda that required something more than character building to enable blacks to prosper in America if color were no longer a barrier, even if the playing field were truly equal.

So in what way does King's patriotism, his love for America differ from Douglas?

Oddly enough, it differs by the very thing one would think makes them the same.

That is their consistent harking back to the principles of the American founding.

How can they both look at the same thing and ultimately at least to some extent, draw somewhat different conclusions?

The similarities lie in their expectation that what we said on paper, according to King, required that we be true to it.

That means fundamentally equality under the law, the protection of the rights to life, liberty, pursuit of happiness, all the civil and political rights that belong to every American citizen.

He called these citizenship rights to teach Americans the true meaning of civil rights.

These weren't black rights, extra rights, special rights.

These were the rights of citizens.

The Constitution did not secure these rights on the basis of color, and therefore, as Frederick Douglass put it, color should not be the criterion of rights.

Where they differed was that Douglass thought these protections in the Constitution, the rights spelled out and logically implied by the Declaration of Independence, were sufficient for black Americans to prosper in the land of their birth.

What remained if protected equally and thereby providing a level playing field was up to each person.

Douglass was confident that blacks would fare well if those things were true.

That's why he focused on character, which was a fundamental part of education, at least back in the 19th century.

Now, where these critiques of king critiques of America by King differ from Douglas, I think, is that they define ultimately equality differently than Douglas.

Ultimately, equality for King is what today goes by the word equity, a focus on outcomes and results rather than merely ensuring what Douglass called a level playing field.

And a fair chance in that respect, is King's patriotism or his love of America something that actually goes against or might undermine the original American promise?

Does it actually teach Americans to look down on or even hate America?

Simply because gaps remain When you measure aspects of the American dream according to racial categories, whether it be wealth, health, employment, or educational achievement.

To the extent that King's message from 64 to his assassination in 68 leads Americans to expect something of their country, that the country could not reasonably deliver or did not ever promise, and therefore lead some Americans to conclude that the principles themselves were deficient and that structures that would implement those principles needed to be radically altered.

If we take seriously king's criticism of America for the sake of America, it's failure.

America's failure, according to King that was, was that its existing values were insufficient to make available the American dream for every member of its society.

To do so, as I say, would require in King's mind different political and economic structures for American society.

His criticism leads Americans to expect something from equality, from consent, from individual rights, from equal protection of the laws, to expect something from these principles that can only be fulfilled in the end at the individual level, not at the societal level.

This, of course, would mean in varying degrees that equal protection is not going to produce equal results.

King was not satisfied with this, and that meant he was not satisfied with America.

His model of patriotism finds the American founding lacking in significant respects.

When Douglass pointed out the gap between American principle and practice, his critique reinforces our understanding and appreciation of the principles of the founding.

His appreciation for what America stands for, his patriotism brings out the best in Americans and their political institutions, calling them to live up to those best principles and institutions.

Similarly, King's leadership of the modern Civil Rights movement succeeded, and rightfully so when it harked back to the words of the Declaration in the Constitution, calling Americans to reclaim the principle of human equality as its load star for American political practice that far, we can go go.

As far as Douglass went, it was how I believe America has made its greatest progress for civil and political rights.

But in so far as King discerns a deficiency in the American founding that calls for new values, different structures, I think these might actually undermine our devotion to what Americans have held to be true for so long, and that I believe has been the key to our progress.

- Martin Luther King's approach to civil rights was nonviolence.

Yes.

And I got this Douglass approach seems to, might have been a different approach.

What do you think the comparison between the nonviolence approach that Martin Luther King proposed and Douglas, who seems to be more aligned with maybe John Brown and some other more aggressive abolitionists?

- King said, you don't get to love through hate.

You don't get to, to the beloved community by violence, by hating your enemy.

And to his dying day, he thought nonviolent protest and a and a subset of that civil disobedience, not all people in favor of nonviolent protests are in favor of civil disobedience.

King was articulated that in the letter from Birmingham jail, Douglass for a while, if you will, followed the pacifist William Lloyd Garrison, and that was the school among abolitionists known as moral suasion, that all you could do to get rid of slavery was to speak the truth about its injustice and pray that the conviction of the Holy Spirit of God would come upon slave holders to recognize what they were doing was wrong and to give up their ways regardless of whether John Brown had that impact or not.

A few did that, but needless to say, not many.

When Douglass came back from the UK in 1847, he co-edited a newspaper called the North Star with another black political activist named Martin Delaney, and in the process of editing that newspaper, Douglas kept reading and he did what most readers do is he weighed the opinions that he had had before and sifted them, considered them in light of other opinions, and came to the conclusion, you know what I, I don't know about this moral persuasion stuff.

It's, it is necessary but not sufficient.

I think we need to be not just moral persuasion, but we need to be political abolitionists.

We need to do what Garrison refused to do, which is to enter the political arena and get the government to do right.

Douglass changed his mind about the Constitution instead of arguing as Garrison had argued and many abolitionists of that school, that the Constitution was pro-slavery by about 1850 Douglass.

In fact, he published a short statement called Change of Opinion, where he is like, you know what?

I've been re re rethinking this.

I've been reading guys like Garrett Smith, Liandra Spooner, Wendell Phillips.

I think we've been making it easier for these southern slave holders to claim the Constitution is theirs no where.

The preamble, in fact, where in any of the four corners of that document, do we ever see the word slave or slavery?

Nowhere.

Where is race mentioned?

Nowhere.

So Douglass became persuaded and he famously, in his most famous speech, what to the Slave, is the 4th of July, July 5th, 1852, deservedly his most famous speech.

He basically comes out and says, I'm no longer a garrison.

Even though he ends with a poem by Garrison, he comes out and makes the argument for a pro liberty constitution.

- The Civic Discourse Project is brought to you by Arizona State University's School of Civic and economic thought and leadership.