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And a very happy birthday to one of the great abolitionists, Charles Lenox Remond. Not familiar with Remond? Yeah, he’s not nearly enough of a household name, and shockingly, he doesn’t appear EVEN ONCE in the 1776 Report. But lemme give you a little introduction to him …
The first thing everyone says about Remond is that he was born into a family of hairdressers; I assume biographers feel compelled to explain how he was rocking such a visionary 1980s hairstyle in the middle of the 1800s. Seriously. This is Burnside-level Fashion Forwardness.
But being a hairdresser was also a common job for free black men; Remond’s father John (pictured) was from Curacao and moved to Massachusetts. Details are sketchy, but it’s suggested that the diminutive, eloquent Charles began giving anti-slavery speeches when he was just a teen.
In fact, Remond became the first black lecturer employed by an anti-slavery society, and as he traveled New England, his fame grew quickly. In 1840, he was called up to the big leagues to join William Garrison and Lucretia Mott at the World Anti-Slavery Convention in London …
It was not pleasant. Remond had to sleep in steerage, Garrison (naturally) argued with other passengers, then the convention wouldn’t let women in as delegates. So Garrison and Remond said, “Screw this,” and watched from the spectators’ gallery with Mott. #ThatsHowYouDoItBoys
After being a hit in England, he returned to the U.S., where he was often shouted down by angry white mobs. And there was a new kid in town: Frederick Douglass. Remond took him under his wing (Douglass named a son after him), but their contrasting backgrounds provoked a rivalry.
There’s a famous story of Douglass getting enraged when he heard Remond give thanks that he was not a slave, or the son of a slave. Douglass retorted: “And I thank God that I am neither a barber or the son of a barber.”
(If you come at Frederick Douglass, you best not miss.)
(If you come at Frederick Douglass, you best not miss.)
Over the years, Remond’s tone shifted. He’d always preached nonviolence, but by the end of the 1850s, angered by the Fugitive Slave Law and the Dred Scott case, Remond was declaring that “American slavery will go down in blood,” and even called for the dissolution of the Union.
In his speeches, Remond stressed the contributions of black soldiers to the Revolution (“Talk to me of Bunker Hill, and tell me that a fugitive passed through Boston today.”) So when the Civil War broke out and black soldiers weren’t allowed to fight, he was … less than pleased.
But when that rule changed, Remond (along with Douglass) became a recruiter for the 54th Massachusetts (yes, of “Glory” fame). Always frail, Remond's health was beginning to fail, and he cut back on his lecturing; when he died in 1873, he was working in the Boston customs house.
So why isn’t Remond as renowned as some other abolition figures? Well, it probably didn’t help that he often castigated his friendly white audiences for listening to his speeches, applauding loudly, but then not actually DOING anything. (Thank God we’ve solved THAT problem, huh?)
Another strike against Remond was his insistence that women’s rights be part of the discussion; to him, discrimination was discrimination. Many anti-slavery groups were torn apart by this issue. Again, if you thought factionalism among activists was a MODERN phenomenon, well …
Fittingly, Remond’s true legacy is paving the way for his sister, Sarah, a world-famous speaker and doctor. Just last year, University College London renamed its racial studies center the Sarah Parker Remond Centre.
And Charles would’ve loved that.
#HappyBDay #CharlesRemond
And Charles would’ve loved that.
#HappyBDay #CharlesRemond
