Robert S. Levine. Martin Delany, Frederick Douglass and the Politics of Representative Identity. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997. x + 314 pp. $27.50, paper, ISBN 978-0-8078-4633-9.

Reviewed by John E. Philips

Published on H-USA (November, 1999)

The American Civil War is arguably the most journalist, inventor, novelist, African explorer, po‐ important episode in American history. It not only litical organizer, diplomat, Freemason, judge, lec‐ changed the lives of all who lived through it, but it turer, member of the International Statistical Con‐ had the most profound efects on the country it‐ gress . . . the list seems endless. Most of all he was self, from the Constitution to the grammar of the loudly and proudly "black" without a trace of English language. white ancestry. Despite their many diferences of Two Americans who were not only afected policy and personality Frederick Douglass never by the war but who had important impacts on the hesitated to point out Delany's accomplishments coming and course of the war were Martin Robi‐ to those who suggested that Douglass's own tal‐ son Delany and Frederick Douglass. ents were inherited from his white ancestors. No one could ever credit Delany's accomplishments Ironically the more widely accomplished of to any white forbears. He had none. them, Delany, is probably the most neglected, and undeservedly so. His insistence on the African na‐ Delany was unusual in other ways. He had ture of ancient Egypt and the importance of Pan- never been a slave, and thus it was not only his Africanism prefgure many of today's Afrocentric immense intellectual achievements that alienated ideas. Although never enshrined as a national him from the experiences, folkways and culture hero the way the other has been, his thought has of the masses of African Americans in his day. infuenced a signifcant part of the African Ameri‐ Those same intellectual achievments, and the ex‐ can community, and his life should be better cruciatingly Western nature of his cultural back‐ known by those who seek to understand how ground, also left him ill-equipped to understand American thought and society have developed. the peoples of West Africa, despite his experiences there. Martin R. Delany was not only a major in the Union Army, its highest ranking African American Such a unique human being as Delany is still during the war, but he was also a medical doctor, difcult to understand today. His advocacy of such H-Net Reviews popular reform causes of his day as temperance, African-American History Month celebrations ev‐ women's rights and abolitionism are easy enough ery February. to understand, but his insistence on emigration, Yet Douglass shorn of anger and militance is the voluntary removal of African Americans over‐ not Douglass, for he was angry and he was mili‐ seas, especially during the 1850s as sectional con‐ tant, if a very American militant. Douglass had fict over slavery heated up, is still difcult to fath‐ been a slave, and the wide range of his experi‐ om. ences as a slave gave him a deep understanding of Stranger still are Delany's alliances with the range of African American experiences and whites who, at frst glance, should have been feelings of his time. He could connect to the black anathema to him. After long trying to distinguish masses in ways that Delany could not, and the his "emigrationism" (the voluntary removal of whites he attracted as supporters shared his inter‐ free blacks outside of the United States) from "col‐ est in an integrated America and black uplift. Al‐ onization" (the forced repatriation of free blacks though both Delany and Douglass were accom‐ outside of the United States) he fnally wound up plished writers the powerful sound of Douglass's taking support from white colonizationists, if only angry, oft-quoted words, was hammered out on because his emigration scheme could not attract the unyielding anvil of slavery and rings down to sufcient support otherwise. By the end of Recon‐ this day as an indictment of the slave system and struction he campaigned for the Democratic Party of racism. Perhaps no ex-slave since Terence has in South Carolina, and was shot at by other blacks made such an impact on literature, or has been so for his troubles. He went back to his "back to often quoted. Africa" schemes, foreshadowing Marcus Garvey's Robert S. Levine has given us an excellent, alliance with the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s. His parallel biography of Delany and Douglass, espe‐ life thus demonstrates an essential dilemma for cially as regards their writings and their interac‐ black nationalists in the U.S. The only whites in‐ tions with another famous author of their day, terested in helping them foster black separation Harriet Beecher Stowe. Levine is a professor of are those whites who have the least interest in the English at the University of Maryland, but histori‐ welfare of African Americans. No wonder other ans should not worry. This book is not an example African Americans throughout history have seen of the fashionable literary criticism that is fction‐ separatism, and especially emigrationism, as a alizing history, it is an example of the historiciza‐ threat to their interests. tion of literature. Levine's portraits of his two pro‐ Frederick Douglass was never a supporter of tagonists are more complex than mine here, not the Democratic Party, and never an emigrationist. least because he has more space at his disposal. His was an American dream, one in which people Instead of treating these authors' ideas as un‐ of all races would fnd a secure place and the changing ideal types he shows how their ideas right to pursue happiness in freedom and equali‐ and their writings evolved in interaction with ty. Half-white and half black in ancestry, he spent each other and with the events of their times. This his life in struggle, frst for the abolition of slavery makes this book especially useful for American and later for the uplift and betterment of African Studies classes, in which history and literature of‐ Americans. As such his integrationism foreshad‐ ten interact. It can easily be recommended as a ows the Civil Rights movement and its leaders. textbook not only for such courses but for history, Shorn of anger and militance, he is often trans‐ literature, and other courses as well. formed into a safe icon of African American If I have a criticism of Levine's book it is in achievement and assimilation, and a staple of his lack of understanding of the sexual politics of

2 H-Net Reviews slavery. Levine argues that Douglass's characteris‐ tic use of the term "manly" only signifes an insis‐ tence on the humanity of blacks, and that linking it to patriarchal ideology is "anachronistic." (page 130) To me this suggests insensitivity to the prob‐ lem of the family under slavery, and lack of recog‐ nition of the fact that so much of the miscegena‐ tion that took place under slavery was a result of rape. Slave men knew that their mothers, sisters and daughters could be and were being legally raped, and that they could do nothing about it. If Levine had understood the implications of this fact better, he might have been able to explain why Delany's emigrationism was far more suc‐ cessful in attracting women (page 92 and page 262 note 68) despite Douglass's equal espousal of women's rights. Copyright (c) 1999 by H-Net, all rights re‐ served. This work may be copied for non-proft educational use if proper credit is given to the au‐ thor and the list. For other permission, please con‐ tact [email protected].

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Citation: John E. Philips. Review of Levine, Robert S. Martin Delany, Frederick Douglass and the Politics of Representative Identity. H-USA, H-Net Reviews. November, 1999.

URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=3596

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