Bromell Nick Bromell

Powers of Dignity (eBook, PDF)

The Black Political Philosophy of Frederick Douglass

• Format: PDF

Produktbeschreibung

In The Powers of Dignity Nick Bromell unpacks Frederick Douglass's 1867 claim that he had "e;elaborated a political philosophy"e; from his own "e;slave experience."e; Bromell shows that Douglass devised his philosophy because he found that antebellum Americans' liberal-republican understanding of democracy did not provide a sufficient principled basis on which to fight anti-Black racism. To remedy this deficiency, Douglass deployed insights from his distinctively Black experience and developed a Black philosophy of democracy. He began by contesting the founders' racist assumptions about humanity and advancing instead a more robust theory of "e;the human"e; as a collection of human "e;powers."e; He asserted further that the conscious exercise of those powers is what confirms human dignity and that human rights and democracy come into being as ways to affirm and protect that dignity. Thus, by emphasizing the powers and the dignity of all citizens, deriving democratic rights from these, and promoting a remarkably activist, power-oriented model of citizenship, Douglass's Black political philosophy aimed to rectify two major failings of US democracy in his time and ours: its complacence and its racism.

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Produktdetails

• Verlag: Duke University Press
• Seitenzahl: 283
• Erscheinungstermin: 4. Januar 2021
• Englisch
• ISBN-13: 9781478012801
• Artikelnr.: 66282550

Autorenporträt

Nick Bromell

Inhaltsangabe

Acknowledgments  vii
Introduction. "The Thing Looked Absurd": The Black in Douglass's Political
Philosophy  1
1. "To Become a Colored Man": Proposing Black Powers to the Black Public
Sphere  17
2. "A Chapter of Political Philosophy Applicable to the American People":
Human Nature, Human Dignity, Human Rights  38
3. "One Method for Expressing Opposite Emotions": Douglass's Fugitive
Rhetoric  55
4. "Assault Compels Defense": Douglass on Black Emigration and Violence  82
5. "A Living Root, Not a Twig Broken Off": Douglass's Constitutionalism and
the Paradox of Democracy's Foundations  101
6. "Somebody's Child": Awakening, Resistance, and Vulnerability in My
Bondage and My Freedom  124
7. "Nothing Less Than a Radical Revolution": Douglass's Struggle for a
Democracy without Race  159
8. "That Strange, Mysterious, and Indescribable": The Fugitive Legacy of
Douglass's Political Thought  188
Notes  207
Bibliography  243
Index  263