"Five heroes of the original civil rights movement." That's what PBS calls Frederick Douglass, William Lloyd Garrison, Angelina Grimké, Harriet Beecher Stowe and John Brown, whose stories are told in the new American Experience 3-part series titled The Abolitionists which begins Tuesday, January 8, 2013.
Radicals, agitators, troublemakers, liberators - abolitionists were called by all these names, as their prophetic relentlessness, their moral insomnia, took on the widespread and seemingly intractable moral disgrace, not just of their day and reified in the Constitution, but of 6,000 years of human history.
In Boston, Massachusetts, where the history of the abolitionists is just around every corner, we have long framed our efforts to abolish homelessness using their language and lessons. Beginning when I was Founding Executive Director of the Massachusetts Housing and Shelter Alliance (MHSA) to my years as Executive Director of the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness (2002-2009), to my current work across the country through The American Round Table to Abolish Homelessness (ART), I have drawn inspiration and lessons from these figures, their symbols, and their words. Whether it was their sense of strategy, their use of the pulpit, the press, the political process, or public opinion, their efforts to forward their prophetic moral vision of the end of slavery offer important lessons.
The PBS series will offer insight into all of these elements of abolitionism for us to use in ending homelessness. There's an old abolitionist song by the Hutchinson family, who often appeared with abolitionists at rallies and speeches. Called Get Off the Track!, the song talks about the train of abolition pulling out of the station. And as it gathers steam, there are those on the track blocking its progress, some are obstructionists who think the way things are, is the way they should be. Then there are the ideologues who feel the train can't leave until everything is perfect and everyone meets their self-righteous measure of normalcy. And some are abiding a status quo that decries slavery, but does little to end it while calling for its victims to remain calm. And some who want to get tougher and more punitive.
Well, all of them are confronted by the whistle of an oncoming train picking up speed, hand on the open throttle with no intent to stop until the station sign reads "Emancipation." And as the growing partnership on board careens down the tracks and spots the obstructionists, the ideologists, and the narcissists, they in unison shout, "Clear the tracks," the train of abolition is rolling.
No stops until the wrong is righted, until we've put an end the moral and spiritual disgrace of homelessness in our country.
Every Friday, from January 1, 1831 until 1865, William Lloyd Garrison published his weekly newspaper The Liberator in Boston to give voice to the abolitionist cause. In his first issue, he stated: "I am aware, that many object to the severity of my language; but is there not cause for severity? I will be as harsh as truth, and as uncompromising as justice. On this subject, I do not wish to think, or speak, or write, with moderation . . .
"I am in earnest - I will not equivocate - I will not excuse - I will not retreat a single inch - AND I WILL BE HEARD.
The Abolitionists airs Tuesdays, January 8th, 15th, and 22nd, 2013 from 9:00-10:00 p.m. ET on PBS (check local listings).
Philip F. Mangano
