"Frederick Douglass" by Robert Haven

Haven is personifying the idea of freedom through the life of Frederick Douglass, an abolitionist and a writer. We see how one's private life, Douglass's, is made public in order to provide testimony for this idea of freedom. Haven says, "When is it finally ours. this freedom, this liberty, this beautiful and terrible thing, needful to man as air, usable as earth; when it belongs at last to all..." The idea of life and death is seen throughout this poem as well. Frederick Douglass lived through and escaped from slavery fighting for his freedom and it is for that very thing, his continuous fight for liberation, that he will be remembered. He is alive through his death; "This man, this Douglass, this former slave, this Negro beaten to his knees, exiled, visioning a world where none is lonely, none hunted, alien, this man shall be remembered." I found myself in this poem because it is as a result of the actions from the likes of Douglass that I and everyone else in America can enjoy freedom and democracy.