Frederick Douglass was brilliant, rising from enslavement to become the foremost abolitionist and Black statesman of his day. He was also not one to be played with. Born into bondage in 1818, Douglass had been leased by his slaveholder to a man named Edward Covey. Known as a slave breaker, Covey was tasked by slaveholders to break the spirits of the enslaved people he controlled. Covey tried to “break” Douglass by tying him up and beating him mercilessly. After a coincidental visit with the local root doctor and conjurer, a skeptical Douglass was gifted with a root said to be so powerful, it would prevent him from being beaten ever again. Perhaps imbued with the spiritual power tucked in his right pocket, he fought off the slave breaker’s next planned assault, grabbing his throat and then fighting off the other enslaved people commanded to suppress him. Struggling for more than two hours, Douglass was the victor of that battle and was never whipped again.
Douglass was just as fierce in his fight for Black equality as he was for the abolition of slavery. So, it’s bizarre that PragerU would choose the fiery and outspoken Douglass as a mouthpiece for slavery apologia. If you have a child, and you’ve ever looked online for content to supplement their history lessons, you’ve probably seen PragerU. They produce videos that look and sound a lot like standard children’s public television with bright colors and historical figures depicted in cartoon style.
But PragerU is not what it seems. Don’t let the U fool you; Prager is not an accredited campus nor even a school; it’s a conservative online media company with a distinctively political, and often, ahistorical point of view. Its founder Dennis Prager, a conservative radio talk show host set out to contest what he perceives as an erosion of “American values” in mainstream children’s media and created an…
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