Frederick Douglass and Us
Mary Hicks • December 8, 2016
Frederick Douglass and Us: Teaching Black Atlantic History in the 21st Century
In a composite nation like ours, as before the law, there should be no rich, no poor, no high, no low, no white, no black, but common country, common citizenship, equal rights and a common destiny.
- Frederick Douglass
Twenty years ago, on the cold and snowy mornings that characterize Iowa winters, my father James Hicks would drive me and my brother to school. In an age before smart phones and tablets, I would silently sit in the back seat imagining what the day would hold and staring aimlessly out the window. My father, on the other hand, loved to start the day off either with NPR blaring or by popping his favorite cassette into the car stereo.