STACY GARROP

Frederick and Susan B.
by Stacy Garrop

I. The eye of the reformer
II. To form a more perfect union
III. Black rights vs. women’s rights
IV. A right, not a privilege
V. We old fighters have prepared the way

All sung texts are drawn from public domain speeches and articles by Frederick Douglass and Susan B. Anthony, with brief spoken introduction and interludes written by Stacy Garrop.

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Introduction
 
Frederick and Susan walk onstage from opposite directions and meet in the middle.
 
Susan:
(Spoken, with formality) Mr. Douglass.
 
Frederick:
(Spoken) Susan, it is 1894. We have known each other for too long to be so formal.
 
Susan:
(Spoken) All right, Frederick. What’s on your mind today?
 
Frederick:
(Spoken) I’m thinking of all the battles we have fought to move our country forward.
 
Susan:
(Spoken) And of the battles we still fight, yes? What did you say back in 1852, about the work a reformer undertakes?
 
Movement 1: The eye of the reformer
 
Frederick:
I am glad, fellow-citizens, that your nation is so young.
Seventy-six years, though a good old age for a man,
is but a mere speck in the life of a nation.
There is hope in the thought, and hope is much needed,
under the dark clouds which lower above the horizon.
 
The eye of the reformer is met with angry flashes, portending disastrous times;
but his heart may well beat lighter at the thought that America is young…
May he not hope that lessons of wisdom, justice, and truth,
will yet give direction to her destiny? 
 
Were the nation older, the reformer’s brow might be heavier.
Its future might be shrouded in gloom,
and the hope of its prophets go out in sorrow.
There is consolation in the thought that America is young.
 
Interlude
 
Susan:
(Spoken) Frederick, your words so lyrical, so sweeping. I am less so.
 
Frederick:
(Spoken) Yes, Susan, but you speak with all the strength you possess.
 
Susan:
(Spoken) How can I not when I see such injustice around me?
 
Frederick:
(Spoken) Agreed. Remember the causes we each fought for, in the 1850s and 60s?
 
Movement 2: To form a more perfect union
 
Susan:
The preamble of the federal constitution says:
"We, the people of the United States,
in order to form a more perfect union,
establish justice,
provide for the common defense,
and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity…”
 
It was we, the people, not we, the white male citizens, nor yet we, the male citizens;
but we, the whole people, who formed this Union.
 
And it is downright mockery to talk to women of their enjoyment of the blessings of liberty while they are denied the use of the only means of securing them - the ballot.
 
The women, dissatisfied as they are with this form of government
-that enforces taxation without representation,
-that compels them to obey laws to which they have never given their consent,
-that robs them, in marriage, of the custody of their own persons, wages and children,
-are this half of the people at the mercy of the other half.
 
Frederick:
I am for the “immediate, unconditional, and universal” enfranchisement of the black man, in every State in the Union.
Without this, his liberty is a mockery;
he is the slave of society,
and holds his liberty as a privilege, not as a right.
He is at the mercy of the mob, and has no means of protecting himself.
 
This is the hour.
We want it because it is our right.
We want it again, as a means for educating our race.
By depriving us of suffrage,
we put a low estimate upon ourselves,
and feel we have no possibilities like other men.
 
Now is the time to press this fight.
This is the hour.
Our streets are in mourning,
Tears are falling at every fireside.
I fear that if we fail to do it now…
This is the hour.
 
Interlude
 
Susan:
(Spoken) It was indeed the hour.
 
Frederick:
(Spoken) We laid out our reasons for the power of the ballot.
 
Susan:
(Spoken) We were in for quite a fight.
 
Frederick:
(Spoken) And how we fought each other in 1869!
 
Movement 3: Black rights vs. women’s rights
 
Frederick:
I must say I do not see how anyone can pretend that there is the same urgency in giving the ballot to woman as to the negro.
With us, the matter is a question of life and death.
 
When women, because they are women,
are dragged from their houses and hung upon lamp-posts;
when their children are torn from their arms, and their brains dashed out upon the pavement;
when they are objects of insult and outrage at every turn;
when they are in danger of having their homes burnt down over their heads;
when their children are not allowed to enter schools;
then they will have an urgency to obtain the ballot equal to our own.
 
 
Susan:
There is not the woman born who desires to eat the bread of dependence, no matter whether it be from the hand of father, husband, or brother.
 
Mr. Douglass talks about the wrongs of the negro;
but with all the wrongs and outrages that he to- day suffers,
he would not exchange his sex…
No matter, there is a glory —
 
Frederick:
Will you allow me a question?
 
Susan:
Yes, anything; we are in for a fight today.
 
Frederick:
I want to know if granting you the right of suffrage will change the nature of our sexes.
 
Susan:
It will change the nature of one thing, the dependent condition of woman.
It will place her where she can earn her own bread,
so that she may go into the world an equal competitor in the struggle for life.
 
Interlude
 
Frederick:
(Spoken) In 1870, the 15th Amendment passed into law. Black men can now protect themselves, their families, and their communities with the power of the vote.
 
Susan:
(Spoken, bitterly) And women are passed by. My quest for universal suffrage failed.
 
Frederick:
(Spoken) Susan, I didn’t want that to happen.
 
Susan:
(Spoken) And yet it did. Who knows how many more decades women will have to wait to get the same power?
 
Frederick:
(Spoken) Let’s not fight anymore, Susan. Let the past lie in the past.
 
Susan:
(Spoken) Our friendship was never the same after this.
 
Frederick:
(Spoken) And yet we remained cordial. Can we do so now?
 
Susan:
(Pause for a beat or two)
 
(Spoken) All right, Frederick.
 
(Brief pause)
 
We saw more eye to eye in the 1880s, when you pressed the need for woman suffrage.
 
Movement 4: A right, not a privilege
 
Frederick:
I am a radical woman suffrage man.
I was such a man nearly fifty years ago. 
I had hardly brushed the dust of slavery from my feet and stepped upon the free soil of Massachusetts, when I took the suffrage side of this question. 
 
Susan:
219 women coal miners
 
Frederick:
I believe equally in its justice, in its wisdom, in its necessity.
 
Susan:
120 women butchers
9 women blacksmiths
 
Frederick:
We are told that suffrage is not a right for man nor for woman, but simply a privilege.
 
Susan:
191 women carpenters
 
Frederick:
We have a right to know by what authority, human or divine, suffrage was made a privilege and not a right;
 
Susan:
22 women architects
1 woman pilot
 
Frederick:
We have a right to know if men, acting alone, have the right to decide what is right, and what is privilege.
 
 
Susan:
4555 women doctors
 
Frederick:
We have a right to know, if suffrage is simply a privilege, by what right the exercising of that privilege is conferred only upon men.
 
Susan:
208 women lawyers
888 women journalists
 
Frederick:
If it is a privilege, we have the right to know why woman is excluded.
 
Susan:
1235 women clergymen
10,810 women artists
 
It is beyond a doubt that before long women will be sent to Congress as Representatives by some of the States…
and who knows within the next century they may be appointed to the Supreme Bench?
Indeed, it is not at all beyond the bounds of possibility that a woman may be elected President some day.
 
Interlude
 
Frederick:
(Spoken) See, Susan? Your work is making a difference.
 
Susan:
(Spoken) Our work, Frederick.  
 
Frederick:
(Spoken) And we will keep fighting until the end of our days.
 
Susan:
(Spoken) It doesn’t seem likely that I’ll live to see it.
 
Frederick:
(Spoken) Maybe not. But the great wheels of change are in motion, and no one can stop them now.
 
Movement 5: We old fighters have prepared the way
 
Susan:
If I could live another century!
I do so want to see the fruition of the work for women in the past century.
There is so much yet to be done,
I see so many things I would like to do and say,
but I must leave it for the younger generation.
 
We old fighters have prepared the way,
and it is easier than it was fifty years ago when I first got into the harness.
The young blood,
fresh with enthusiasm and with all the enlightenment of the twentieth century,
must carry on the work.
 
We shall some day be heeded,
and when we shall have our amendment to the Constitution,
everybody will think it was always so.
They have no idea of how every single inch of ground that she stands upon today has been gained by the hard work of some little handful of women of the past.
 
 
Frederick offers his arm to Susan, and they walk off stage together, then the music ends.