Frederick Douglass Still Speaks
By Rachel Marie Brooks Atkins
Earlier this year, during Black History Month, we at Pray March Act hosted a virtual book club on Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. It was my first time reading the book, and I was struck by how relevant it remains, not only for understanding our nation's history, but also for examining the life of the Church today.
If you have never read Douglass’s narrative, or have not revisited it recently, I encourage you to do so as Juneteenth approaches. Far from being merely a historical artifact, the book raises enduring questions about human dignity, violence, power, and Christian discipleship. Three themes stood out to me in particular.
1. Dehumanization and the Commodification of Human Beings
Christians believe every person bears the image of God and therefore possesses inherent dignity. Douglass’s narrative reveals what happens when human beings are instead treated as economic assets.
After the death of one of his enslavers, Douglass and the other enslaved people were subjected to an estate valuation so the property could be divided among heirs. He recalls:
“We were all ranked together at the evaluation. Men and women, old and young, married and single, were ranked with horses, sheep, and swine. There were horses and men, cattle and women, pigs and children, all holding the same rank in the scale of being, and were all subjected to the same narrow examination… At this moment, I saw more clearly than ever the brutalizing effect of slavery upon both slave and slaveholder.” (p. 57)
Once human beings become commodities, all kinds of evil become possible. Douglass recounts how Edward Covey purchased an enslaved woman specifically for reproduction and arranged for a married enslaved man to live with her so she would bear children. The children, Douglass notes, were viewed simply as an increase in Covey’s wealth.
While slavery itself has been abolished, Douglass’s reflections still prompt difficult questions about how economic systems distribute power and reward labor. One of the most revealing passages in the narrative comes when Douglass is hired out to work in Baltimore:
“I was now getting, as I have said, one dollar and fifty cents per day. I contracted for it; I earned it; it was paid to me; it was rightfully my own; yet, upon each returning Saturday night, I was compelled to deliver every cent of that money to my master Hugh... solely because he had the power to compel me to give it up.” (p. 102)
The point is not that modern labor markets are equivalent to slavery. Rather, Douglass challenges us to ask how power shapes economic relationships[1]. Do our systems allow some to capture a disproportionate share of the fruits of others’ labor? Do we treat market outcomes as morally neutral even when they fail to provide a dignified standard of living?
Throughout the narrative, the contrast between the wealth of enslavers and the deprivation of the enslaved is impossible to ignore. Children slept on cold floors, lacked adequate clothing, and often went hungry. Reading Douglass today invites reflection on issues such as persistent poverty and food insecurity, and then challenges us to view contemporary realities through the lens of history. This is especially true with the issue of persistent racial inequality in the U.S.
2. Violence as Social Control
Perhaps the most striking feature of Douglass’s narrative is its relentless depiction of violence. From the opening pages, readers encounter a system maintained through fear and brutality.
Douglass recalls witnessing the whipping of his aunt:
“I have often been awakened at the dawn of day by the most heart-rending shrieks of an own aunt of mine, whom he used to tie up to a joist, and whip upon her naked back till she was literally covered with blood. No words, no tears, no prayers from his gory victim, seemed to move his iron heart from its bloody purpose. The louder she screamed, the harder he whipped.” (p. 23)
Violence was not incidental to slavery; it was one of its primary mechanisms of control. Enslaved people were beaten to enforce obedience, discipline labor, and break resistance. Douglass himself was sent to Edward Covey, who had developed a reputation for “breaking” enslaved people.
Douglass also documents killings that went unpunished because enslaved lives were not valued equally under the law. One account describes an enslaved girl killed by her enslaver after she failed to respond quickly enough to a crying child:
“Mrs. Hicks... seized an oak stick of wood by the fireplace, and with it broke the girl’s nose and breastbone, and thus ended her life... It did produce sensation, but not enough to bring the murderess to punishment.” (p. 39)
Reading these passages led me to reflect on the circumstances that allow societies to justify violence against people made in God’s image. I could not help but reflect on these questions in the context of George Floyd’s murder. This tragedy, which ultimately led to the founding of the Pray March Act and other justice movements in some communities, was met with skepticism, indifference, or justification in other communities.
While the details of extrajudicial killings may differ across time and context, the underlying questions remain. What assumptions about the value of a human life enable people to excuse or rationalize violence? What narratives shift blame from those who wield power to those who suffer under it?
Douglass’s account also brought to mind contemporary debates about immigration enforcement. The parallel is not immigration policy itself but the use of fear and force in its implementation. Throughout the narrative, enslaved people lived under the constant threat of punishment regardless of how faithfully they complied with expectations. In a different context, many immigrant families today experience fear, detention, family separation, and uncertainty evenafter attempting to follow legal processes. Family separation, in particular, is a recurring theme in Douglass’s narrative and remains a profound moral concern in our own time.
3. The Christianity of Christ
My favorite section of the book is the appendix, where Douglass draws a sharp distinction between what he calls “the Christianity of Christ” and “the Christianity of this land.”
He begins by clarifying that his criticisms of religion throughout the narrative should not be interpreted as opposition to Christianity itself:
“I have, in several instances, spoken in such a tone and manner, respecting religion, as may possibly lead those unacquainted with my religious views to suppose me an opponent of all religion.” (p. 118)
Throughout the book, Douglass exposes the religious hypocrisy of many slaveholders. He describes Edward Covey as a man who prayed regularly and appeared deeply devout while simultaneously abusing enslaved people and profiting from their exploitation. Douglass writes that Covey “would make a short prayer in the morning, and a long prayer at night,” and yet seemed unaware of the contradiction between his piety and his cruelty.
Similarly, Douglass recounts the religious conversion of Thomas Auld:
“Prior to his conversion, he relied upon his own depravity to shield and sustain him in his savage barbarity; but after his conversion, he found religious sanction and support for his slaveholding cruelty.” (p. 65)
Douglass’s concern is not merely that some Christians behaved badly. Rather, he demonstrates how religion itself can be distorted into a tool for justifying injustice.
To ensure readers understand his position, he clarifies:
“I love the pure, peaceable, and impartial Christianity of Christ: I therefore hate the corrupt, slaveholding, women-whipping, cradle-plundering, partial and hypocritical Christianity of this land.” (p. 118)
His words remain relevant. Douglass reminds us that doctrinal correctness alone does not guarantee faithful discipleship. Many people who affirmed orthodox Christian beliefs also defended one of the greatest moral evils in American history.
His narrative, therefore, invites a posture of humility and self-examination. Before asking where society has gone wrong, we might first ask where our own blind spots lie. Where have we confused cultural assumptions with Christian convictions? Where have we failed to recognize the suffering of our neighbors? And how might we bear witness to the truth with both courage and grace?
More than 175 years after its publication, Frederick Douglass’s narrative remains a powerful call to honor the dignity of every person, reject systems that depend upon violence and exploitation, and practice the Christianity of Christ rather than the Christianity of convenience.
[1] Scripture also challenges us to ask questions about power and our economic relationships. Deuteronomy 24:14–15: "Do not take advantage of a hired worker who is poor and needy, whether that worker is a fellow Israelite or a foreigner residing in one of your towns. Pay them their wages each day before sunset, because they are poor and are counting on it. Otherwise, they may cry to the Lord against you, and you will be guilty of sin." Leviticus 19:13: "Do not defraud or rob your neighbor. Do not hold back the wages of a hired worker overnight." Jeremiah 22:13: "Woe to him who builds his palace by unrighteousness, his upper rooms by injustice, making his own people work for nothing, not paying them for their labor." Malachi 3:5: "So I will come to put you on trial. I will be quick to testify against sorcerers, adulterers and perjurers, against those who defraud laborers of their wages, who oppress the widows and the fatherless, and deprive the foreigners among you of justice, but do not fear me, says the Lord Almighty."
James 5:4: "Look! The wages you failed to pay the workers who mowed your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty."