The version of the North Star that is the brightest star in the constellation was what Harriet Tubman used to guide herself and many others to freedom during the late 1840s and 1850s. The North Star publication, which was the first newspaper that Frederick Douglass founded in 1847, was used as a vehicle to help create the climate for an acceleration of the abolitionist movement, the Civil War, and the eventual ending of chattel slavery in the United States.
Both Tubman and Douglass were pushing the country to be congruent with the ideals that were put forth on the nation’s founding documents. They both had a desire for a greater number of people to be included in the opportunities that America contained and for justice to be spread to those who had too long been denied it. They faced the challenge of contending with a brutal institution of slavery that had existed for nearly two and a half centuries in ways that were different but connected by goals that could appropriately be framed as social justice and inclusion.
Dr. Marcus A. Bright
The “Tubman dimension” that focuses on individual liberation and the “Douglass dimension” that keys in on collective emancipation are both needed. Communities and students may not be dealing with explicit bondage or captivity in the form of slavery, but there are other chains that need to be broken for everyone to have an equitable shot at living out their potential and for there to be collective community upliftment and individual advancement from a socioeconomic perspective.
Colleges and universities can play a meaningful role in helping people to break out of a limited environment and mindset. There are boundaries that they may have put on themselves and/or societal restrictions that may have been imposed on them. The fight for social justice and inclusion is a multidimensional process that requires patience, pressure, and persistence.
The Douglass dimension greatly involves identifying various means to create a climate where policy prescriptions can move forward, and systemic change can take place. Douglass used his pen and voice to dramatize the inhuman conditions of slavery through his autobiographies, speaking engagements, and frequent commentary in publications like the North Star. Problems must first be exposed and highlighted before they are addressed in a significant way.
Addressing these problems often involves some kind of confrontation if any substantive deviation from the status quo is going to occur. This may involve the creation of new policies or making intentional efforts to include underrepresented populations in existing programs and practices. Just like with medical prescriptions, policy prescriptions must be consistently applied for a period of time in order for the unwanted symptoms to subside and meaningful change to occur.
The Douglass dimensions raises and follow up on issues like the inclusion of certain populations of students in the “top of line” or “mainstream” opportunities or are there groups who are being systematically relegated to the “chitlin circuit” of lower tier opportunities. For context, chitlins or pig intestines, were among the undesired parts of the hog that slave masters gave to slaves while the owners kept the portions of what was considered to be “high on the hog” like bacon and ham to themselves.
