The practicality of the first Black bookstore owner, the role of ex-presidents, and more about libraries and erasing history: newsletter, July 31, 2020

As with much of the rest of the world, Americans continue to struggle with the COVID-19 pandemic. Should we send children to school? Can professional sports maintain a schedule? Is it safe to go to a restaurant or to church? Will there be a vaccine any time soon? Without many answers or much firm information, we are left to navigate these dangerous shoals.

Fortunately, there is general agreement that the pandemic is real and the virus is dangerous and that we should take measures to combat it.

Meanwhile, we make allowances so that life can continue. I hope that you are coming to terms with the allowances that you must make and, in doing so, find new parts of your life that give you excitement and pleasure. Have a great weekend.

Under the newsletter’s hood: Last week’s newsletter was sent to 2,556 subscribers and had a 29.3 percent open rate; 7 persons unsubscribed.

David Ruggles was a practical man.

In his New York abolitionist circles of the 1830s and 1840s, that designation — a practical man — had a specific meaning. Ruggles didn’t just talk about and write about the need to free the slaves of America; he did something about it.

In the words of his biographer, Graham Hodges:

Over the course of his life, Ruggles was a true 19th-century Renaissance man, a visionary political leader, a savvy street fighter and a healer. He didn’t share Frederick Douglass’ fame or good fortune, but he was an indelible influence on the younger man  — crucial to forging the legend that Douglass was to become. Source: David Ruggles: Friend to Frederick Douglass, leading black activist

David Ruggles was born in 1810 in Connecticut. He was never a slave. His parents were among a tiny number of free Blacks living in the nation at the time. His father was a woodcutter, and his mother was locally famous as a caterer and baker of exquisite cakes. As a child, David took to reading and writing and learned quickly the value of these skills.

When he was a teenager, he moved to New York and worked as a mariner and at a variety of other jobs. In 1827 he opened a grocery store. The next year he joined the abolitionist movement under the tutelage of the Rev. Samuel Eli Cornish, editor of the Freedom’s Journal, America’s first Black newspaper. Ruggles became an agent for the Freedom’s Journal and also wrote many articles and editorials about the responsibility that free Blacks had in helping slaves gain their freedom.

Ruggles was not shy about expressing his feelings, and his writing and his activities angered both whites and Blacks. His store was burned twice, and as he re-built it, it morphed into a bookstore that carried abolitionist literature, pamphlets, and books.

At the time Ruggles was active, New York City was a magnet for runaway slaves and for slave catchers, commonly known as “blackbirders.” While slavery was no longer legal in New York, the courts and the legal system rarely worked in favor of Black people. Blackbirders roamed the streets of New York looking for runaway slaves — or Black people whom they could claim were runaways. They had been known to kidnap vulnerable Blacks, especially children, and sell them into slavery.

Ruggles believed in, and practiced, “practical abolition” — helping runaways who had made it to New York get to safer areas. To do this, he and a few other like-minded individuals formed the New York Vigilance Committee to aid those who showed up in New York. Historian Eric Foner has written that the NYVC was the beginning of what we now know as the Underground Railroad.

One of the hundreds of runaways that he helped was Frederick Bailey, who showed up in New York in 1838 from being recently enslaved in Maryland. Bailey was alone, scared, and without a plan. Ruggles found out about him, sought him out, and took him to his house. Ruggles united Bailey with his fianceé, Anna Murray, and the two were married. Ruggles also talked incessantly about the need for those, like Bailey, who had gained their freedom, to become advocates and activists for abolition. Once he left Ruggles’ house, Bailey — who would eventually change his name to Frederick Douglass — knew exactly what he wanted to do with his life.

During this period, Ruggles was everywhere — down on the docks seeking out runaways, selling books in his shop, raising funds from sympathetic Blacks and whites, and advocating for Black in the New York courts. Somehow, he found the time and resources to publish the nation’s first Black-edited magazine, Mirror of Liberty.

Ruggles’ non-stop activity and advocacy took its toll both on his health and reputation. Ruggles was accused by fellow abolitionists of misusing the funds that he raised, and by 1841, he was in ill health and almost blind. He left New York seeking cures and funds, and with the help of friends eventually landed in a Utopian commune in the present-day village of Florence, Massachusetts. Ruggles recovered some of his health and his eyesight, but he stayed in Florence, where he died in 1849 at the age of 39.

His early death undoubtedly contributed to his current obscurity, but those who knew him never forgot him, especially Douglass, who called him a “whole-souled man.”

Finally . . .