The Agitators: Episode Two

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from Bondage to Freedom: 1861

From facing an angry mob to speak out against slavery to waiting for Harriet Tubman to arrive with African-Americans escaping slavery, this episode brings to life Frederick and Susan’s agitations during the Civil War.

Host: Ashley C. Ford

• The Agitators Episode 2: from Bondage to Freedom: 1861

  
  

  From facing an angry mob to speak out against slavery to waiting for Harriet Tubman to arrive with African-Americans escaping slavery, this episode brings to life Frederick and Susan’s agitations during the Civil War.

  Credit / Author:

  WSCC, PRX, NPS

  Date created:

  11/18/2020

  Audio Transcript

  Episode 2: from Bondage to Freedom 1861

  ASHLEY C. FORD The Women’s Suffrage Centennial Commission, the National Park Service, and PRX present The Agitators a play by Mat Smart.

  Last episode, we left Frederick Douglass and Susan B. Anthony at an Anti-Slavery Society Meeting in Albany, New York on February 5th, 1861. While the fighting hadn’t started yet, seven states had already seceded from the Union. Tensions were high.

  To give you a little background on the facts -- Frederick recruited Susan to be a speaker for the Anti-Slavery Society. Not only because he believed she could be a powerful voice in the fight, but because he believed her to be physically strong enough for the task. Traveling, at that time, was grueling. Trains had terrible suspension and shock absorption. Train cars often filled with smoke and soot from the engines.

  On top of that, Anti-Slavery Society speakers often had to face mobs. This was nothing new for Frederick, but it certainly was for Susan. She proved up to the task.

  Another thing – it is true that Susan and Frederick both knew Harriet Tubman and helped her lead enslaved African-Americans to freedom. Rochester, New York was one of the last stops on the Underground Railroad before Canada.

  Now let’s get back to it.

  I’m Ashley C. Ford. This is The Agitators.

  Episode Two: from Bondage to Freedom. It’s still 1861.

  We’re at the Anti-Slavery Society meeting. Frederick and Susan have just locked themselves in a small storage room. The sound of the mob pulses all around them.

  [Sound effects of the mob. We hear “Damn the abolitionists” over and over. They are in a small storage room. The smoke surrounds them]

  SUSAN What happened?

  FREDERICK Someone threw pepper in the stove. [The sound of the mob on the other side of the door grows louder.] Your lip is bleeding!

  SUSAN It happened when the mob slammed into us.

  FREDERICK We need to get you a doctor.

  SUSAN It is nothing.

  FREDERICK When your father finds out how I have put you in harm’s way –

  SUSAN I am forty years old. I do not answer to my father.

  FREDERICK Yes, but –

  SUSAN You are in danger tonight, same as I.

  FREDERICK But this is my fault for dragging you into this.

  SUSAN I chose to accept this position with the Anti-Slavery Society.

  [There is pounding on the door. FREDERICK double checks the lock]

  FREDERICK Need I remind you that last night in Syracuse, they dragged an effigy of you through the streets and then set it on fire?

  SUSAN Better it than me.

  FREDERICK They have bricks and knives and guns.

  SUSAN Mayor Thacher has promised to sit on the stage with us – with a loaded revolver in his lap. He will keep the order.

  FREDERICK But what if he must use it? Are you prepared to condone that violence and cast aside your Quaker beliefs?

  SUSAN This fight takes precedence.

  [A glass bottle breaks against the other side of the door]

  FREDERICK This is madness – we cannot speak tonight. As soon as Elizabeth and Lucretia arrive, we must all leave out the back.

  SUSAN I cannot believe my ears.

  FREDERICK This feels no different than a mob I spoke to in Indiana. They threw rocks at me. One gashed me here – across my temple. – and even though blood covered my face, I spoke on. They overtook the platform. They beat me. They shattered my wrist and knocked me unconscious. They only stopped because they thought I was dead.

  SUSAN Why did you speak on?

  FREDERICK Because I was a fool.

  SUSAN Or was it because you refused to be silenced? There are men out there who have never heard a woman speak in public. Or a black man. If we can change the mind of one of those –

  FREDERICK It is not safe.

  SUSAN No, it is not. But there must be no union with the slaveholders. We must convince as many people in the North as we can, as fast as we can. “Those who profess to favor freedom and yet deprecate – ”

  FREDERICK Do not quote me to me.

  [Elsewhere in the hall, there is a gunshot. SUSAN and FREDERICK drop to the floor. Another gunshot. The crowd quiets. Another gunshot. Silence] SUSAN I am willing to die for this. I am willing to die to end slavery in this country. Are you?

  FREDERICK I answered that question long ago.

  FREDERICK [quietly at first, and by the end, afire] “Those who profess to favor freedom and yet deprecate agitation, are people who want crops without plowing the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the roar of its many waters. The struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, or it may be both. But it will be a struggle.”

  FREDERICK and SUSAN “Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.”

  [FREDERICK and SUSAN unlock the door and charge through it together. It is silent – except for the wind and an occasional cricket chirp]

  SUSAN I thought I heard something. Did you not hear something?

  [It is nearly three months later. Night]

  The Douglass House South Avenue Rochester, New York April 28, 1861

  [SUSAN and FREDERICK stand in the open doorway. ]

  FREDERICK I thought I heard footsteps.

  SUSAN As did I. [They listen. It is silent except for the wind] How can it be so quiet? We are at war now, how can it be quiet?

  FREDERICK . . . Every morning I open the newspaper, new and damp from the press, I am afraid it will say that the Capital has fallen.

  SUSAN I have not slept in the two weeks since Fort Sumter.

  FREDERICK Will your brother’s fight?

  SUSAN It is against our Quaker beliefs, but yes, Daniel and Merritt will fight. My whole family supports their decision. But I dread the. . . not knowing that will come with it. When Merritt fought with John Brown in Osawatomie five years ago, the weeks we waited – not knowing if he was alive or dead – were unbearable. . . . Will your sons enlist? – if they are ever allowed to?

  FREDERICK They will be the first in line. Let the black man get upon his person the brass letters ‘U.S.’ Let him get an eagle on his button a musket on his shoulder bullets in his pockets and there is no power on earth which can deny that he has earned the right of citizenship in the United States. Was that something? It must have been the wind. [They listen. It is quiet] Feels like rain in the air. SUSAN Do you think Harriet will have news?

  FREDERICK When has Harriet Tubman ever not had news?

  SUSAN Indeed. [There is thunder in the distance] Let us set out the blankets.

  FREDERICK No, if it storms, I do not want you caught out in it. Go home. We can take them all.

  SUSAN No, my family has vowed to take half. I will wait until they arrive and then escort them to our farm.

  FREDERICK Yes, but –

  SUSAN We already have the blankets set out in our living room. Let us set them out here, too.

  [A crash of thunder. It starts to rain. They come back inside the house and close the door. SUSAN goes to a stack of folded blankets that rests on top of a wooden file cabinet. She begins unfolding the blankets length-wise on the floor, one by one. FREDERICK sits down and does not help with the blankets]

  FREDERICK What a feast Anna has made for them.

  SUSAN I tried to get here earlier. I wanted to help her cook.

  FREDERICK She is used to it.

  SUSAN When I arrived, she barely could keep her eyes open and yet I had to plead with her to go to bed. She said she baked twenty loaves of bread today.

  FREDERICK She wants there to be enough for them to take along tomorrow to Canada.

  SUSAN And how many loaves of bread did you bake today?

  FREDERICK Come again?

  SUSAN Do you know how to make bread?

  FREDERICK Why would I make bread?

  SUSAN Perhaps your wife would welcome the help. [SUSAN abruptly drops a blanket into FREDERICK’s lap. Reluctantly, he begins to help SUSAN set out the blankets. A few moments of silence as they do. They take books from Frederick’s bookshelf] Madame Bovary.

  [They put one book at the top of each blanket -- to be used as a pillow]

  FREDERICK Aesop’s Fables. Robbie Burns.

  SUSAN David Copperfield. [FREDERICK opens the book to the title page] Is this what it looks like?

  FREDERICK When I was in England last year, he attended one of my lectures.

  SUSAN (reading) “With admiration to Fred Douglass. Your fellow man of letters – Charles Dickens.” What was he like?

  FREDERICK He was in a hurry. And he had breadcrumbs in his goatee. That is all I remember.

  SUSAN We cannot put this one out.

  FREDERICK No, please – leave it. I may not be able to bake bread, but at least I can provide a pillow that is signed by Charles Dickens. . . . I have decided on September 3rd. For my birthday.

  SUSAN The day you escaped.

  FREDERICK The day I escaped. . . . How I loathe that this has become routine. We are helping human beings from bondage to freedom. It is a sacred act and yet, it is routine for us.

  SUSAN . . . Lord – Please protect Harriet and our friends. Please let them travel here unimpeded and unassailed. . . Let them find their way to us with the ease of a shuttle flying in the loom of a weaver. Amen.

  FREDERICK Amen.

  [FREDERICK hums the first four notes of the song from the beginning. He hums them again, but does not continue]

  SUSAN You still do not remember it?

  FREDERICK No. But I will find it.

  [He hums the four notes again, but cannot remember more]

  SUSAN . . . I will check on the water.

  FREDERICK No, I will. I, at least, know how to check if a tub of water is warm or not.

  [FREDERICK exits to the kitchen. By now, there are five or six makeshift beds on the floor. SUSAN goes to the blankets FREDERICK set out. She straightens them. SUSAN finally sits down. She starts taking off her boots and stockings]

  SUSAN (to herself) Dear lord, my feet. . .

  [FREDERICK re-enters. He has a towel over his shoulder and he carries a wash bin full of steaming hot water.]

  FREDERICK Ladies and gentlemen, Susan Anthony has sat down.

  SUSAN Shush. . . . My feet are throbbing.

  FREDERICK Oo, my wrist is throbbing as well. It never healed correctly. Every time I write, it feels as though it is on fire.

  SUSAN . . . I am using the B. now – in my name.

  FREDERICK Susan B. Anthony?

  SUSAN Yes.

  FREDERICK That will take some time to get used to.

  [SUSAN puts her feet into the hot water]

  SUSAN Oh. Heavenly.

  [FREDERICK puts his bad wrist in the water]

  FREDERICK Mm-hm. Yes, please, and thank you.

  SUSAN I still do not know how you bear to soak your wrist alongside my feet.

  FREDERICK Oh, I have smelled much worse than yours.

  SUSAN Thank you? [They laugh. They close their eyes and enjoy the relief of the hot water. A long silence] What a fool I was – to be so reckless in the winter of ’55 – when I petitioned for married women’s property rights. Why did I think it was good idea to go to every county in New York in the dead of winter? It is only luck that the frostbite did not claim any of my toes. Or worse. But still, my feet are wrecked. And for what? I was the shipwrecked sailor, shouting at the sea. Yelling at the sea of fat, white men in Albany about property rights and temperance. But the sea does not move on its own. It is moved by the wind. And the wind is the vote. It was lunacy to think they would listen to anyone without the power to vote them out of office. Even my father has finally come around.

  FREDERICK Abraham Lincoln got that Quaker to the polls.

  SUSAN You and I had something to do with that as well.

  FREDERICK True.

  SUSAN I try to imagine it sometimes. What it will feel like to have a voice. Imagine the North victorious. Slavery abolished.

  FREDERICK Amen.

  SUSAN Amen. Imagine: all of us – all women and men – every shade, every color. All of us, together, enfranchised.

  FREDERICK Amen.

  SUSAN Amen. Let us go together – the first time we vote. Let us stand next to each other as we cast our first ballots – shall we?

  FREDERICK We shall. What a glorious day that will be. “Fight for my rights, Aunt Susan.” Remember when little Annie said that to you?

  SUSAN Yes.

  FREDERICK “Fight for my rights.” . . . It was a year last month. A year our Annie is gone. She would have been twelve. I think of her every day. [They sit in silence for a moment] Do you know how to ice skate?

  SUSAN . . . Yes. Why?

  FREDERICK She always wanted to go ice skating on the Genesee River. Every winter – every time it was cold enough to freeze – she begged us. We never took her. Anna and I did not know how to ice skate. But why did we not learn? Why did we not buy her skates and take her? [They listen] Do you hear something? Dammit – where are they? Why aren’t they here yet? Let us speak of something else. No good will come from our worrying. Tell me a joke.

  SUSAN I do not know any jokes.

  FREDERICK Surely, you must.

  SUSAN . . . I know an April joke. Shall I tell it? – since it is April.

  FREDERICK Please.

  SUSAN Why was the soldier so tired in April? Because he just had a March of thirty-one days. [FREDERICK doesn’t laugh. SUSAN doesn’t either]

  SUSAN A thief broke into a lawyer’s house. But you need not worry, after a terrible struggle the lawyer succeeded in robbing the thief.

  [Neither FREDERICK or SUSAN laugh]

  FREDERICK No.

  SUSAN Those are the only two jokes I know. FREDERICK . . . I have one. Two scholars had a heated argument about who was smarter. One of the scholars yelled, “I bet you do not even know the Latin word for goose.” And the other scholar stopped short and thought and thought and eventually he said, “Alas, I do not know the answer.”

  [FREDERICK laughs. SUSAN does not]

  SUSAN I do not understand.

  FREDERICK “Alas, I do not know the answer.”

  SUSAN What?

  FREDERICK Anser is Latin for goose.

  SUSAN We are not funny.

  FREDERICK We are hilarious.

  SUSAN Uh. . .

  FREDERICK How about a story then? Tell me a story. Take our minds far away from here.

  SUSAN . . . On the days that my feet especially hurt, you know what I think of? How my life would be different if I had accepted the hot plank man’s proposal.

  FREDERICK What now?

  SUSAN Have I never told you about my hot plank man?

  FREDERICK No.

  SUSAN He proposed to me. During that terrible winter six years ago.

  FREDERICK Proposed what?

  SUSAN Marriage.

  FREDERICK Is that so?

  SUSAN Do not act so surprised. I have received many marriage proposals over the years. . . . I forget if it was Schenectady or Johnstown, but it was a bitterly cold night. The lecture hall was freezing. The gas lighting was out. And right before I was to speak he appeared – like a bearded angel – with a steaming thick plank, baked delightfully hot. He put it under my feet – right there on the stage – and it felt like a little plank of heaven. Throughout the evening, he brought me hot cups of tea. The next day he appeared with his sleigh pulled by two beautiful gray mares. And again – the hot plank – right there in the sleigh for under my feet. This went on for several days and he was a proper gentleman. He was a perfectly adequate conversationalist. But finally, unable to stop himself, he blurted out: “Please, Susan, leave this terrible life you are living and marry me. I shall share with you my heart, my home, and my hot plank forever.”

  FREDERICK He did not.

  SUSAN He did. I told him I was flattered, but the life I was living was the only one I found endurable. And then he howled: “Oh, modern woman! Modern woman is beyond any ordinary man’s comprehension!” And off he went. Taking his hot plank with him. Forever.

  [FREDERICK laughs. SUSAN does not. She takes her feet out of the basin]

  FREDERICK You have barely let your feet soak.

  SUSAN I have been sitting long enough.

  FREDERICK Now I am curious – how many marriage proposals have you received?

  SUSAN Do not make me regret telling you.

  FREDERICK Is it more or less than ten?

  SUSAN Shush.

  FREDERICK Fifteen? Twenty? More than twenty? So it is more than twenty. I am impressed, Susan B. Anthony.

  SUSAN I am 41 years old now. The proposals have stopped.

  FREDERICK We could try to find your hot plank man.

  SUSAN I will never be a mother.

  FREDERICK I did not know you wanted to be.

  SUSAN It is not that I did not want to be a mother. It is that I was unwilling to sacrifice my whole life and everything I am fighting for to do so. Why can Anna barely read? There is no American more gifted with words than you – you are admired by Charles Dickens himself – and yet your wife cannot read. I do not understand it. All of your children can read. Why not Anna?

  FREDERICK I hired her a tutor once. Anna sent her packing after one day. She does not want to learn.

  SUSAN Or does she not have the time to learn? When I arrived tonight, Anna was ready to fall over in the kitchen and you were reading the newspaper with your feet up. Do you believe her sole purpose is to cook and wash and raise your children while you are away lecturing?

  FREDERICK There is nothing, in this world, more important than raising children.

  SUSAN So when your children were infants, did you change their cotton gowns and diapers? If Anna needed to go to a convention – like you so often do – would you mind the children for a week? For a month? For a year? How is Anna any different than your maid?

  FREDERICK Careful.

  SUSAN I do not understand. On the platform, you say women have no greater champion than Frederick Douglass, but here on South Avenue, behind closed doors, do you believe something else?

  FREDERICK Anna has her role. I have mine. Both are equally important.

  SUSAN And that, Frederick, is why I had to choose between leading this fight and being a mother. These roles made it impossible for me to do both. If ever a man said to me: “Let us work together in this great cause. Let me be your companion and aide for I admire you more than any woman I have ever admired. Let us be partners in this great fight. Let us be equals outside the home and within it.” If ever a man proposed that to me, then I would be married. But no man ever did. And I wonder if any man has ever proposed that to any woman.

  [In the distance, a low rumbling. The floor begins to shake. It is as though the sound is coming from underground. SUSAN and FREDERICK do not seem to hear it. The rumbling grows louder and louder. The floors and walls shake. A train whistle blows. The sound of the massive engine of a locomotive]

  ASHLEY C. FORD End of Episode Two. I’m Ashley C. Ford. This has been The Agitators.

  This was The Agitators by Mat Smart, from the Women’s Suffrage Centennial Commission, the National Park Service, and PRX Productions.

  The podcast adaptation was envisioned by Commission Executive Director Anna Laymon, with support from Kelsey Millay. Performances by Madeleine Lambert as Susan B. Anthony and Cedric Mays as Frederick Douglass. Directed by Logan Vaughn. Original music and score by Juliette Jones and Rootstock Republic. The production team includes Executive Producer Jocelyn Gonzales and Managing Producer Genevieve Sponsler. Post-production sound and mixing by Sandra Lopez-Monsalve and Ian Coss. Original music and score recorded, mixed, and mastered by Joshua Valleau. Theme song production by Hunter LaMar. Original music and score recorded, mixed, and mastered by Joshua Valleau. Vocals and Theme song production by Hunter LaMar. Additional production by Brett ‘Whitenoise’ White. Train station sound design by David Kelepha Samba.

  Additional music by Epidemic Sound. Special thanks to David Herman of Good Studio, Dan Dietrich of Wall-to-Wall Recording, and Erin Sparks and Jacob Mann at Edge Media Studios.

  To learn more about the history of the suffrage and abolition movements, visit the show’s website at GO DOT N-P-S DOT GOV SLASH suffrage podcast.

Listener Companion from the National Park Service

Find out more about the people, places, and stories from Episode Two.

• 

  National Historical Park

  Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad

  The Underground Railroad’s best known conductor was Harriet Tubman. She risked her life to bring enslaved people to freedom.

• 

  Underground Railroad Network to Freedom

  Network to Freedom sites across the US honor, preserve, and promote the history of resistance to enslavement through escape and flight.

• 

  Harriet Tubman: Freedom Seeker

  Learning that she was to be sold due to her enslaver's financial trouble, Tubman escaped to the North. Learn more about her journey.

Credits

The Agitators by Mat Smart, brought to you by the Women’s Suffrage Centennial Commission, the National Park Service, and PRX Productions.The podcast adaptation was envisioned by Commission Executive Director Anna Laymon, with support from Kelsey Millay.

Performances by Madeleine Lambert as Susan B. Anthony and Cedric Mays as Frederick Douglass. Directed by Logan Vaughn. Original music and score by Juliette Jones and Rootstock Republic. The production team includes Executive Producer Jocelyn Gonzales and Managing Producer Genevieve Sponsler. Post-production sound and mixing by Sandra Lopez-Monsalve and Ian Coss.

Original music and score recorded, mixed, and mastered by Joshua Valleau. Theme song production by Hunter LaMar. Original music and score recorded, mixed, and mastered by Joshua Valleau. Vocals and Theme song production by Hunter LaMar. Additional production by Brett ‘Whitenoise’ White. Train station sound design by David Kelepha Samba. Additional music by Epidemic Sound. Special thanks to David Herman of Good Studio, Dan Dietrich of Wall-to-Wall Recording, and Erin Sparks and Jacob Mann at Edge Media Studios.