Awaking a Sleeping Giant

Frederick Douglass started out as a slave named Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey. When he was hired out by his slave master to work in a Baltimore, Maryland, shipyard, he met a free-born, African-American woman named Anna Murray. Bailey and Murray fell in love.

Galatians 5:13-14 Complete Jewish Bible says, "For, brothers, you were called to be free. Only do not let that freedom become an excuse for allowing your old nature to have its way. Instead, serve one another in love. For the whole of the Torah is summed up in this one sentence: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”"

Murray used her freedom and finances to help Bailey get his freedom. Using money that Murray gave Bailey and another friend's borrowed identification papers, Bailey escaped from slavery in Maryland to New York, which was considered the "grand station" of the Underground Railroad. In New York Bailey met from African-American Abolitionist and Author David Ruggles.

Later Murray left Maryland too. She met Bailey in New York.

Reverend James W.C. Pennington, pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of New York, was born a slave in Maryland who later escaped to New York. Pennington earned a doctorate of divinity from Heidelberg University in Germany and had the honor of marrying Frederick Bailey and Anna Murray. 

Together the married couple left for Massachusetts where Bailey changed his name to Douglass to escape slave hunters. In Massachusetts Douglass met William Lloyd Garrison, abolitionist and newspaper publisher of The Liberator, and began his own career as an abolitionist. Douglass became a speaker, writer and activist. He wrote books and published his own newspaper called North Star, which is also the name of a newspaper I wrote for and edited in high school and the name of the star runaway slaves used while traveling the Underground Railroad to freedom.

Douglass' North Star's motto is "Right is of no sex--Truth is of no color--God is the Father of us all, and all we are brethren."

Douglass spent his youth in slavery and forced silence about slavery's evils. As an adult he spoke. A Dutch proverb says, "Sooner or later, the truth comes to light." 

Like Douglass' slave authorities tried to keep him submissive and silent, Chinese authorities tried to keep Chen Guangcheng submissive and silent. Guangcheng became internationally known for filing a 2005 law suit against a local government for forced abortions and forced sterilizations practiced as part of China’s one-child policy. Guangcheng's lawsuit was rejected, and he was placed under house arrest in Shandong, China, with guards surrounding his house, his cell phone service cut off, Internet access blocked and bright lights shinning on his house at night.

Tejas is the name the Spanish gave to the area that became the US state of Texas. The Spanish chose the name based on a Native American word for "friend."

Guangcheng, a self-taught lawyer who wears dark sunglasses because he is blind, had friends help him to escape from house arrest in April 2012 and to enter the US embassy in Beijing. A deal was worked out between China and the United States; now Guangcheng lives in New York with his wife, Yuan Weijing, and two children.

On April 9, 2013, he testified before a subcommittee of the U.S. House Committee On Foreign Affairs about his family's and other people's persecution in China and other ongoing human rights abuses in China. Guangcheng gave Congress a list of 130,000 Chinese officials involved in forced abortions and forced sterilizations.

Since China's one-child policy was implemented in the 1970s more than 336 million babies have been killed by abortion; that's more Chinese baby boys and baby girls have lost their lives to abortion than the combined total population of the United States of America and Australia. In America since Roe v. Wade legalized abortion 55 million American babies have been killed. 

Guangcheng's house arrest in Shandong, China, meant that he could not leave his house and people couldn't come to him. During this time Actor Christian Bale tried to visit the activist to publicize his plight, but was prohibited by plain clothes Chinese security.

Andrew Jacobs of The New York Times with others attempted to visit Guangcheng when he was under house arrest. Jacobs was met by a man who swatted at his car with a broom and called for back up who detained Jacobs. The security back up took the reporters' camera and deleted their images. When Jacobs was driving out of town, he was followed by a car with the license plate covered over by paper.

Guangcheng's nephew, Chen Kegui, has been in jail after using knives to fend off local officials who burst into Kegui's home after Guangcheng's escape.

Chen Guangcheng said, "Recently, many friends and neighbors who I have been in touch with by phone have been taken into custody by the authorities for questioning. They have been threatened and made to describe what our conversations have been about," (January 29, 2013, Reuters article entitled "Blind dissident urges global pressure on China over rights" by Paul Eckert.)

When asked about having regrets on speaking out about forced abortions and forced sterilizations in China, Guangcheng told Anderson Cooper of CNN through a translator, "I have no regrets."

During an April 8, 2013, George W. Bush Institute interview Guangcheng recommended that Americans listen to various Chinese media to learn the ways that freedom of speech, the right to vote and the right to protest are missing in China and human rights violations are being committed.

A Persian proverb says, "Opportunity should be grabbed."

Chen recommended that once people are informed about the situation in China they can show support for life, freedom and human rights by wearing dark sunglasses like he wears, blogging or something else according to ability.

Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, commander of the Japanese forces that bombed Pearl Harbor bringing World War II to America, says about the attack, "I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve" (Japan Enchantment of the World.)

What are some ways to stand up for life, love and liberty?