PC/AHC: Frederick Douglass a Communist/Marxist?

Is there any way to get Frederick Douglass to embrace the ideas of Marx and Communism, and if he does, what effects could this have on politics for African Americans in the US after the Civil war?
 
Is there any way to get Frederick Douglass to embrace the ideas of Marx and Communism, and if he does, what effects could this have on politics for African Americans in the US after the Civil war?

Umm, it's WAY too early for that. Seriously, Marx had probably just barely published his works, and Socialism, while a somewhat popular concept at the time, wouldn't be anywhere near as important as race to someone like Douglass.
 
Umm, it's WAY too early for that. Seriously, Marx had probably just barely published his works, and Socialism, while a somewhat popular concept at the time, wouldn't be anywhere near as important as race to someone like Douglass.

Actually, The Communist Manifesto was published in 1848, and the was already a communist league that pushing extreme socialist solutions in the run up to 1848.

So, yes its possible. It would likely discredit Douglass in the eyes of the few whites that did support him, and make the plight of us blacks even worse than otl.
 
He might turn to Marxism late in life, one supposes, and Marxism is not the only form of socialism current in his day. He could have experimented with Utopian Socialism; he could also have become a moderate or a social democrat of some sort. One possible avenue is his friendship with Lincoln, who although not himself a socialist was oriented towards the workingman at least somewhat politically. A surviving Lincoln who corresponds with Douglass could perhaps stimulate his interest in the problem of labour and they could together perhaps reach a point where "we cannot have a solution to the problem of the color line without a solution to the problem of labor".
Killer300-the split between the Marxists and the Anarchists was around 1860-1870, which would seem to indicate him being prominent. Marx also was somewhat known in the US from his work as a Crimean War correspondent with Horace Greely and followed the Civil War with great interest.
 
Top