Frederick Douglass’s Words Ring True: “Power Concedes Nothing Without a Demand”

As I was reflecting on Frederick Douglass this Black History Month, I thought about the blitz of executive orders coming from Donald Trump. The term “blitz” is apropos as it comes from the German Blitzkrieg, meaning “rapid attack” or “lightning war.” Hence, as Trump targets and attacks this fragile experiment called democracy, it is important that we heed Douglass’s defiant wisdom: “Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will,” Douglass said in an 1857 speech. Moreover, the abolitionist stated, “The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.”

Douglass’s words are just as true and applicable today as they were when he initially articulated them. It is always important, though, as we observe Black History Month and engage in critical reflection regarding thinkers of the past that we don’t read them through an ahistorical lens. After all, they are complex figures responding to the material historical contexts in which they lived. Failure to do so opens us to misinterpretations, distortions and even hagiographic forms of idealization.

To avoid these, I turned to African American philosopher John H. McClendon to address a number of important questions regarding aspects of Douglass’s philosophy, his political praxis, his Christian sensibilities and the importance of his work for us today. McClendon is a professor of philosophy at Michigan State University and is the author of several books, including African American Philosophers and Philosophy: An Introduction to the History, Concepts, and Contemporary Issues (with Stephen Ferguson) and Black Christology and the Quest for Authenticity: A Philosophical Appraisal. The interview that follows has been lightly edited for clarity and length.

George Yancy: I’ve been thinking about how Frederick Douglass described U.S. slavery as “the blood-stained gate.” He is a thinker who powerfully engaged questions of philosophical anthropology (the meaning of the “human”), Black freedom and resistance, dignity, natural rights, social justice, emigration and integration, the use of violence, the problem of theodicy, and so on. How do you see, in broad terms, Frederick Douglass fitting within the African American philosophical tradition?

John H. McClendon: In our coauthored text, African American Philosophers and Philosophy: An Introduction to the History, Concepts, and Contemporary Issues, Stephen Ferguson and I locate Douglass within the dialectical idealist tradition, which was dominant among the various African American philosophical schools of thought during the 19th and 20th centuries. In its association with African American thought, dialectical idealism emphasizes that the catalyst for all motion, change and development (laws of motion) rested in immaterial entities such as ideas, consciousness or the human soul.

In his 1854 address, “The Claims of the Negro Ethnologically Considered,” we discover Douglass is astonished that white people with high levels of education and even scientific training participate in espousing racist ideas. Therein, he maintains an idealist perspective, first in thinking that formal education is removed from the ruling ideology — where white supremacy has a significant function — and also that such formal and even scientific education can be corrected by infusing the element of human love as a crucial shield against racist ideology. Nevertheless, he also argues that scientific ideas have the capacity to promote higher ethical standards that correspondingly can influence better race relations between Black and white people.

The notion that ideas (albeit scientific ones) can possibly evoke ethical changes in race relations, without material (institutional changes) is patently an idealist perspective on social transformation. This is why we view Douglass, in many respects, as a dialectical idealist. I offer the caveat “in many respects” because on other occasions, he is quite in sync with the priority of institutional (material) transformation. In his debate concerning the 15th Amendment — with white women in the suffrage movement — he elaborates on why Black men having the right to vote was vital to the very survival of the entire African American community.

Douglass is famous for saying: “If there is no struggle, there is no progress.” He goes on to say, “This struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, and it may be both moral and physical, but it must be a struggle.” In our contemporary moment, what might Douglass say about not only the importance and necessity of struggle vis-à-vis Black people, but the kind of struggle that is requisite for substantial Black progress? After all, anti-Black racism continues to exist systemically. And Black people still find it necessary to shout “Black Lives Matter!”

As Trump targets and attacks this fragile experiment called democracy, it is important that we heed Douglass’s defiant wisdom: “Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.”

In many of my public lectures and speeches, over the years, I utilize this statement from Douglass. It has both substantive lessons and magnetic appeal for audiences across the spectrum. When we conceive of struggle in a protracted manner and not confined to given acts of resistance, rebellion, demonstrations/marches or even specified movements such as the movement for Black lives, then the cardinal principle of his declaration emerges in bold relief. The key point of departure is the notion of “protracted” struggle, because this could entail the incorporation of struggles over the course of several historical periods. Yet different historical periods also engender qualitative changes that provide new and different subject matter and content for our assessment and ultimately more concrete interpretations of the past.

Accordingly, this is the reason why historians must engage in the process of periodization. Periodization is a procedure that conceptually frames the chronological ordering of facts and events. For illustration, the categories such as antebellum and postbellum denote the periods before and after the Civil War. In turn, these two conceptual moments in time have markedly different content. This conceptual content substantially impacts how we interpret events in regard to the respective time period under review. Therefore, when it comes to how Douglass might have a viewpoint on what kind of struggle is requisite for substantial Black progress at this given juncture, we must remain cognizant of how different historical contexts and circumstances give rise to acts of rebellion and movements such as abolitionism, civil rights, Black Power, the resistance to the Vietnam War, Pan-Africanism, the movement for Black lives, and so on.

When we carefully examine Douglass’s legacy, then it becomes apparent that during the antebellum period and the struggle to end slavery, Douglass consistently remained in the vanguard for the Black struggle. Notably, the propensity toward gradualism — found among certain white abolitionists, such as William Lloyd Garrison — was effectively attached to paternalist notions about Black people, expressly centered on Black leadership capacity within the movement.

Consequently, Douglass published his own abolitionist newspapers, encouraged and supported others to do likewise. Douglass’s The North Star (1847-1851) and Frederick Douglass’ Paper (1851-1860) were organs that effectively propagated the independent viewpoints of Black abolitionists. He also strongly supported James McCune Smith’s newspaper, The Colored American. Smith — a physician who was the first Black person to earn a medical degree in the U.S. — mentored Douglass, and their organizational alliances included the Radical Abolitionist Party. Douglass remarked, “No man in this country more thoroughly understands the whole struggle between freedom and slavery than does Dr. Smith, and his heart is as broad as his understanding.” The antebellum Douglass’s viewpoint on struggle was steadfast, militant and uncompromising.

The postbellum period ushered in considerably different social, political and economic realities that Douglass did not fully comprehend. Given all of its complexity, it demanded a different kind of struggle than the antebellum abolitionist movement. Douglass became a stalwart defender of the party of Lincoln, namely the Republicans. Although the Republicans played a crucial role in establishing what W. E. B. Du Bois termed as Black Reconstruction, this party was willing to compromise with the Southern racists and reactionary politicians. Before the Compromise of 1877, which overturned Reconstruction, in 1873 a severe economic crisis of depression level completely destroyed the Freedman’s Bank. Previously, Douglass willingly directed this bank and defended it on the grounds it would be a good investment opportunity for the Black community. Needless to say, many Black people trusting in Douglass’s leadership sadly lost their life savings.

As you know, Martin Luther King Jr. said, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” King believed that human beings are “co-workers with God” in the work of transforming the world. King certainly believed in struggle but believed progress cannot be attained without God. Is this also true for Douglass? In your book, Black Christology and the Quest for Authenticity: A Philosophical Appraisal, you write, “Arguably, Douglass’s standpoint is one of religious humanism, if not completely secular in character.” Could you explain what you mean?

The draconian measures of the Trump administration must be challenged by way of the mass movements that extend beyond the pale of electoral politics.

The esteemed philosopher and theologian William R. Jones was one of the pioneers who located Douglass within the camp of religious humanism. My remarks simply build on Jones’s profound interpretation of Douglass. Jones’s penetrating text, Is God a White Racist, remains a must-read if we are to compare King’s theism — God must intervene in the Black struggle — contra Douglass’s position. Throughout his writings, Douglass makes reference to God, therefore he is not in any fashion an atheist, which is to say one who does not believe in God. Instead, situating him as a religious humanist allows for granting a belief in God without the need for God’s active participation in the Black struggle. This is what theologians designate as deism.

A little-known fact about Douglass is that he engaged in the social scientific study on race via ethnology. Here the influence of James McCune Smith plays a vital part. Not only was Smith a physician, he was also a pioneer in employing statistical methodology and social scientific investigation to affirm the humanity of Black people. In his 1854 address, “The Claims of the Negro Ethnologically Considered,” Douglass asserts:

I propose to submit to you a few thoughts on the subject of the Claims of the Negro, suggested by ethnological science…. The relation subsisting between the white and black people of this country is the vital question of the age. In the solution of this question, the scholars of America will have to take an important and controling [sic] part. This [is] the moral battlefield to which their country and their God now call them.

However, though Douglass invokes the name of God in this passage, he does not make God a necessary condition for the progression of the Black struggle. It follows that my judgment about Douglass as religious humanist is based on his appeal to scientific evidence, which is a secular concern.

Keeping with religion, I see white Christian nationalism as a form of idolatry that centers and glorifies white racial hegemony and xenophobic violence. Within this context, I hear the voice of Douglass where he powerfully critiqued what he called “the Christianity of this land.” He goes on to state: “Indeed, I can see no reason, but the most deceitful one, for calling the religion of this land Christianity. I look upon it as the climax of all misnomers, the boldest of all frauds, and the grossest of all libels.” The idea that Trump is the “chosen one” or should be treated as such is as idolatrous and vacuously sanctimonious as it gets. In what ways do you think Douglass would find manifestations of white Christian nationalism within this country today to be theologically problematic?

Douglass openly rejects any form of cultism, religious or otherwise. At the same time, he understands that the principles of human dignity are established on the grounds of all humans sharing universal rights. The effort to destroy this bond of humanity, whether sanctioned by religion or political allegiance, should be entirely rejected. Douglass makes abundantly clear, “A contest had in fact been going on in my mind for a long time, between the clear consciousness of right and the possible make-shifts of theology and superstition. The one held me an abject slave – a prisoner for life, punished for some transgressions in which I had no lot nor part; and the other counseled me to manly endeavor to secure my freedom. This contest was now ended; my chains were broken, and the victory brought me unspeakable joy.”

For you, what is most crucial with regard to Douglass’s work and how does it speak to our current moment?

The recent discussions on the presidential election in the Black community, along with the debates among African American intellectuals, academics and even activists, were often confined to the narrow constraints of the ruling two-party system. Postbellum, Douglass’s position in debate with Richard T. Greener (the first Black graduate of Harvard) focused on if Black people should migrate out of the South. We find the once-progressive Douglass now anticipates the conservative trope of Booker T. Washington’s calling for casting our buckets in the South. Douglass repeatedly made conservative political decisions in concert with Republican policies. The backdrop of all of the above is why we must diligently study how history at a given historical moment drastically alters how we should interpret leading individuals in view of our present circumstances in relation to the past events. What we do know is that Douglass did not comprehend what kind of struggle was requisite for substantial Black progress circa the postbellum period. While some Black thinkers and activists like Peter Clark, Lucy Parsons and T. Thomas Fortune held a critical stance vis-à-vis industrial capitalism and its political party, Douglass remained loyal to the Republicans and advised Black people that the Republican Party was the solitary vehicle that they should fasten their political future to. Douglass’s failure to understand the emerging industrial capitalist order, along with the nature of the political role and rule of Republicans, led to his decline from the apex of progressive Black leader. We can learn from Douglass how a myopic (bourgeois) political outlook is detrimental to Black progress.

I would like to return to Douglass’s famous quote: “Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.” As a way of concluding, how do you understand the importance of Douglass’s words in the current moment under the second Trump presidency?

Douglass provides a valuable lesson inasmuch as he asserts the need for resistance rather than resignation, protracted struggle instead of defeatism. The draconian measures of the Trump administration must be challenged by way of the mass movements that extend beyond the pale of electoral politics. The power embodied in the concerted fight against reaction is the key weapon requisite for fundamentally progressive social, political and economic transformation. We cannot forget that during the antebellum period that the fight against slavery, which included the Underground Railroad and Slave Rebellions, was in fact a federal crime. Hence, Douglass, in gaining his freedom, became a “criminal” under the provisions of U.S. law. Douglass’s choice was clear: namely, to fight for freedom whatever the cost. Today the fight for freedom continues with our ongoing struggle.