The Key to Freedom

Oh freedom, oh freedom, oh freedom over me. And before I'd be a slave, I'd be buried in my grave. and go home to my Lord and be free. Destination Freedom.

The Chicago Defender and Station WMAQ bring you Destination Freedom, a new radio series dramatizing the great democratic traditions of the Negro people, interwoven in the pageant of history, and a part of America's own Destination Freedom.

Today, Destination Freedom brings you the second and last chapter in the story of Frederick Douglas, outstanding editor and leading abolitionist during the Civil War, the chapter entitled The Key to Freedom. There were soldiers in the streets and cannon in the valleys.

The Civil War was on. Some said it started when mad Ed Ruffin fired the first gun on Fort Sumter. You said it started when the first slave was brought to Jamestown. You said it would end when the rebels were beaten.

You said there would be no end until the slaves were free. You told that to the tall, tired man in the White House. You made a proposal. President Lincoln listened, looking out towards the river.

Mr. Douglas, you proposed first that I arm the slaves. Now that I make this war a war of liberation, it manceth to pick the slaves. Is that it? Actually, that I'm afraid you won't like my answer.

You don't like my proposal? My likes won't dictate my answer. You've been a leader for 20 years in the fight to free the slaves. I know of your own life in slavery. I know how you hate it.

I'm with you on that. Then can't you see the war as a war of ending the slaves? I see the war in only one way, Douglas, as a way to preserve the Union, not to save or destroy slavery.