I slightly embarrassed myself at my last #BurnsSupper when I ran up to @NicolaSturgeon to start talking about this part of Burns' legacy.

#TaeTheBard
#BurnsNight2019

Robert Burns was a deeply flawed, brilliant man. His words have reached the furthest corners of our world, and still offer us lessons today. We should not whitewash his history just because we like him, but we can learn from Douglass' approach.

#TaeTheBard

After returning to the US, Douglass was invited to speak at a Burns Supper, where he said:

#TaeTheBard
#BurnsNight2019
#Scotland

While in Scotland, he found that "In none of these various conveyances, or in any class of society, have I found any curled lip of scorn, or an expression that I could torture into a word of disrespect of me on account of my complexion; not once…".

#TaeTheBard

Of course, he knew that Burns was linked financially to the slave trade, and was in no sense a perfect man. He wrote:

#TaeTheBard

In particular, he saw the resonance in Burns' rejection of the worst parts of his society: "He became disgusted with the pious frauds, indignant at the bigotry, filled with contempt for the hollow pretensions set up by the shallow-brained aristocracy."

#TaeTheBard

He visited Scotland as part of a tour to drum up support for the abolitionist cause - they desperately needed money. While here, he visited Ayr and wrote that it only made him more impressed with Burns now that he understood the 'times in which he lived.'

#TaeTheBard

Douglass had already chosen his last name based on the work of Sir Walter Scott, which the man he stayed with after becoming free had been reading. But it was Burns he talked of and wrote about. When an American questioned him, he wrote:

#TaeTheBard

Robert Burns didn't live at the same time as Douglass, but his work had travelled to the new United States and his lyrical discussion of freedom and liberty - what it means to be free - inspired people all over a country failing to live up to its founding ideals.
#TaeTheBard

Happy #BurnsNight2019!

My favourite Robert Burns fact: his connection to abolitionist Frederick Douglass, who called him "the man who taught me a man's a man for a' that"

#TaeTheBard
👇

Why is it called #BurnsNight and not #burnsnicht?

Also if you are doing research on Burns for tomorrow this is an extremely interesting history of #auldlangsyne with original documents by Burns



#Burns #BurnsNight2019 #TaeTheBard