Frederick Douglass, as portrayed by living history actor Charles Pace, brought the 19th century abolitionist, author, journalist and federal official to life Friday night at the Juneteenth Reception in Historic Washington Park's Brunson House.
Starting just after 6:30 p.m. Friday in the 1860 Brunson House, a reception took place in Historic Washington Park to commemorate Juneteenth Weekend as well as the Freedman's Bureau office set up in the town during Reconstruction. It featured a reenactment of U.S. Major General Gordon Granger's reading of the general order announcing the freedom of slaves in Texas June 19, 1865 and a living history performance of Frederick Douglass speaking about his early life and his interactions with Abraham Lincoln.
A barbecue meal with all the trimmings was served by C&L Celebrations to about two dozen attendees in a specially decorated room where VOTE SoAR (Visibility Outreach Touch Engage South Arkansas) organizer Sylvia Brown spoke about the occasion first, citing Alfred North Whitehead's maxim: "We think in generalities but we live in details."
Living in detail, Brown said, means connecting as individuals to the families and communities we live in and getting to know the way these connect to the flow of history: "We're in community, with the state, with the national and with people across the country. We're not in a bubble. Within these 20,000 folks that we have here within the 728 square miles [of Hempstead County], we live in detail in community. So Black resistance, celebration of history, resilience, and liberation is about surfacing, lifting up and exploring the generalities of history and the details in the lives of black families with names that stretch from Fulton to Antoine to Emmet to Blevins to Hope. So we're here now."
Josh Williams, Curator of Historic Old Washington, dressed in a Union Army uniform read from General Order Number 3 in the role of Major General Gordon Granger. "The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired labor. The freedmen are advised to remain quietly at their present homes and work for wages," stated the order. At the end of the reading, the attendees applauded and yelled in approval.
Then the performance of Frederick Douglass by Texarkana native Charles Pace began. His speech was a wide-ranging one that included a listing of the achievements of the Republican Party, of which Douglass was a member, in accomplishing the end of slavery and passing Constitutional Amendments establishing civil rights for freed slaves. He spoke of his first meeting with President Abraham Lincoln, with whom he was impressed: "At no point in my conversation with the President did I get the feeling that he looked at himself as a superior speaking to an inferior. He simply received me as one gentleman receives another."
He knew Lincoln hated slavery, but Douglass said he did not hate it based on experience of it the way Douglass had. Douglass then told the story, depicted in his first book Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave of engaging in a long wrestling match against a cruel overseer in a barn in Maryland. At the end, Douglass felt he made the point he would not be physically dominated by the man, who never challenged Douglass again.
The speech also featured material on Douglass' falling out with the abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison over whether slaves should take a lead role in freeing themselves or whether they should wait and survive while white abolitionists worked through the political apparatus for more gradual reforms. After the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, Douglass dispensed with the idea slavery could be abolished by persuasion alone. "A long history of peaceful slave owning has put the slave holders beyond the reach of moral considerations," Douglass said.
Douglass held a question and answer session in which he was asked how he became literate. He told of the wife of a slaveowner teaching him the beginnings of reading only to be stopped by her husband who told her a slave who could read would be unmanageable from then on. He later bartered with poor white children for reading lessons. "I always had plenty of food. So I could exchange food with them for food for my mind," Douglass said.
A question asking how he came to know Abraham Lincoln led to Douglass expressing his regret about not meeting with Lincoln at the Old Soldier's Home at the President's request in order to fulfil a social obligation already agreed to.
Asked if he thought there would ever be a black president, Douglass answered that his experience had demonstrated, because of the election of black Congressmen in his lifetime, that if the American people wanted one, they would get one. He also gave some advice about how to bring it about. "We've got to vote. We've got to get women to vote. And vote with our feet, vote to match what you read in the paper. Voting is your voice. It's what you do every day. You vote in everything that you do."
Charles Pace then broke character to answer questions about his own career. He said he had begun to perform as historical characters in one-man shows because of the influence of Geneva Gay, a professor at University of Texas-Austin in curriculum studies for African-American History. After graduating from there, Pace began performing at the university as a student development specialist, as his first one-man-show character Malcolm X.
While Pace worked at a conference given here in Hope, an LSU student who had found out Pace was preparing to take on the role of Douglass next and challenged him to do so at a conference presentation. "Somehow I managed to get through it," Pace said. Soon, he was invited to Georgetown University and then LSU to perform as Douglass again. About that time, Pace took the chance and began to market himself as a living history performer. "I've been doing this ever since," he said.
Pace is a Texarkana native and said he has fond memories of Hope because of trips to swim in the public pool that once existed in Northside Park.
Also during the reception, Historic Washington Park Superintendent Pam Beasley announced that changes would be coming to the park over the next two years that will involve work on buildings but also new programs to suit greater interest in the African-American contributions to the town. She called for volunteers to help with this process.
General Granger reads General Order No. 3, explaining to former slaves of Texas that they are free.
VOTE SoAR's Sylvia Brown