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INTEGRITY SEMINARS:
SPECIAL REPORT
JANUARY 2020
Integrity Seminars special reports are designed to provide additional background about Seminar content and related
topics. A discussion of IS pedagogy related to this report can be seen here.. This document may be freely shared with
attribution in accordance with Creative Commons: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA.
WHAT FREDERICK DOUGLASS CAN TEACH
CONTEMPORARY COLLEGE STUDENTS
By Gary Pavela*
Introduction
Slavery and other forms of involuntary servitude have been
ubiquitous throughout much of human history, particularly after
the rise of agriculture. Princeton historian Bernard Lewis wrote
that slavery is "attested from the very earliest written records,
among the Sumerians, the Babylonians, the Egyptians, and other
ancient peoples." University of Pittsburgh history professor
Seymour Drescher explained that:
For thousands of years before the mid-fifteenth century, varieties of
slavery existed throughout the world. It thrived in its economically
and culturally developed regions. The institution was considered
indispensable for the continued functioning of the highest forms of
political or religious existence. . . Whatever moral scruples or
rationalizations might be attached to one or another of its
dimensions, slavery seemed to be part of the natural order. It was
Frederick Douglass by Samuel J Miller,
as deeply embedded in human relations as warfare and 1847-52/Wikimedia Commons
destitution.
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