OPINION
Douglass descendant moves crowd in Sunday address
By C.S. Gilbert
A large crowd gathered in the historic Douglass Gym in Bahama Village Sunday night as Kenneth Morris, Jr., great-great-great grandson of legendary abolitionist Frederick Douglass, spoke to mark National Human Trafficking Awareness Month as guest of the Keys Coalition, convened in 2012 to combat this modern-day slavery. He won a standing ovation.
Fifty seats were set up by Ralph Major and his staff at the gym and and at least a dozen more had to be added, plus some folks in bleacher seating.
Morris recounted his family history — not only his lineage from the mythic Douglass, who was born a slave and self-educated to become an advisor to U.S. presidents, but also his blood inheritance, on his mother’s side, from black America’s next most heroic 19th -early 20th century figure, scientific genius Booker T. Washington. He also pointed out the difficulty of filling such huge and historic shoes.
In the metaphor than most defined his talk, he spoke of the residential museum where his most famous relative’s belongings were preserved. Visiting the site more than once as a Washington, D.C. school boy, he said he was fascinated by the bedroom, where visitors could see, behind the velvet rope, the bed, the books, the nightshirt – and the shoes owned by Douglass. Later, as an adult, he visited the museum with his mother, and the guide admitted them to the museum bedroom. Morris was even invited to try on the shoes of his illustrious ancestor. . . and he could not.
“I could not fill those shoes,” he said. “But each of us – you and you and I – together we can fill them. We can carry on the work of ending slavery and winning equality.”
He spoke of the work of his family foundation, Frederick Douglass Family Initiatives – see www.fdfi.org – devoted mostly to empowering children to resist exploitation. “It is easier to strengthen a child than to heal a man,” he quoted.
Morris will speak again, including the local debut of a video, at 6 p.m., Tuesday, at the library at the Florida Keys Community College on College Road, Stock Island. The public is invited.
For additional information, telephone Keys Coalition founder Tim Gratz at 305-600-8000.
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Thanks, Connie. It was a pleasure to meet Mr. Morris and hear his inspiring talk on his life, ancestral history and what he is doing today to fight human trafficking. I would very much encourage anyone that can to go see him Tuesday at the FKCC library at 6:00. I am going to be there!