[HN Gopher] The Tedious Heroism of David Ruggles
___________________________________________________________________
The Tedious Heroism of David Ruggles
Author : samclemens
Score : 102 points
Date : 2025-01-10 14:02 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (commonplace.online)
(TXT) w3m dump (commonplace.online)
| taneem wrote:
| I always find that sharing those little tedious details is what
| creates visceral understanding of a situation. In this case, the
| true horror of being a liberated Black person in the 1800s and
| having to relentlessly work to rescue others, while surrounded by
| people who truly don't care.
|
| On a lighter note, I use the same approach in understanding user
| needs as a product builder. I focus on letting people share the
| minutiae of their day rather than have them editorialize the big
| topics. By doing so, I get a lot of visceral insight and
| intuition.
|
| Thanks for sharing this. I really enjoyed reading it.
| DFHippie wrote:
| > people who truly don't care
|
| The problem with the old "The only thing necessary for the
| triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing" quote of
| uncertain provenance is that it leaves out most of the
| population: the people who truly don't care.
| mncharity wrote:
| tfa> The streets of New York were famously the filthiest in the
| United States, too, lined with privies piled high, which
| overflowed into the streets. Loose pigs and dogs snuffled in
| the mire.
|
| One of my visceral touchstones for early New York: All through
| the winter, excrement would accumulate, frozen in the streets.
| Then would come the spring thaw. Even New Yorkers found it
| notable. It would take several weeks, for hordes of ultimately-
| fat pigs, to consume that... bounty.
|
| More on topic, I was years ago viscerally struck by a letter
| from a 1700's British officer embedded with an American
| militia. He was clearly gobsmacked - the American officer
| was... was _talking_ with his _men_ , and... _asking the men
| what they thought_!?!
|
| Perhaps we might teach history as a "travel guide for the time
| traveler"? "Finding yourself in NY in December of 1836, ..."
|
| Nice thought on user interviews.
| delichon wrote:
| Here's a great candidate to stand on one of those empty plinths.
| The inscription could be "Social Justice Warrior" to return some
| valor to the epigram.
| stronglikedan wrote:
| lol, there was never any valor associated with it to begin with
| treetalker wrote:
| Another high-quality source that I had never heard of but can now
| add to my RSS feed! Thank you!
| isleyaardvark wrote:
| If you enjoyed this article you would enjoy the book "The
| Kidnapping Club" by Jonathan Daniel Wells. It covers the history
| of pre-Civil War New York. (As the title suggests, the bit in the
| article about "probably have kidnapped him and sold him into
| slavery" was more common than you might think.)
| Clippybara wrote:
| This was a great example for the point that the author is trying
| to make. The fact that after all that effort, Ruggles was only
| able to free 2 out of 5 enslaved men is apropos. His victory was
| incomplete, incremental at best, and nearly got him enslaved
| again as well, but it was still a victory and it counted,
| especially for the two men that did get their freedom.
|
| Shout-out to a grindset abolitionist!
| JackFr wrote:
| I loved the article. This is a truly minor nitpick - he really
| wasn't walking that far. As most of the streets and street names
| in lower Manhattan are the same you can mark the spots on Google
| maps and see the distances. None of the trips are more than a
| mile and many less. Someone running the same errands today would
| most likely walk too.
|
| I work in the neighborhood though so it's wild to imagine all
| that going down on the same streets I walk to work on.
| shermantanktop wrote:
| 18" of horse and human excrement covered with ice would
| probably make it a different experience to walk a mile.
| flocciput wrote:
| > Finally, on Christmas Eve, a group of armed black New Yorkers
| (reportedly not including Ruggles) boarded the brig Brilliante
| and managed to rescue two of the men.
|
| This sentence kind of contradicts the author's point though?
| After all that tedious work within the legal system it wasn't
| even procedure that got any of these men freed, but actual direct
| action.
| rossdavidh wrote:
| Excellent article, with a great point. For those interested in
| learning more, "Gateway to Freedom" by Eric Foner is a good book.
| My review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2499848091
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2025-01-10 23:00 UTC)