ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla — While in St. Augustine, Governor Ron DeSantis unveiled a statue of African-American civil rights leader Frederick Douglass.
“He’s one of the top five orators in American history. I don’t think there’s a question about that,” said the Governor, praising the work of Douglass. “Now, was he sent to boarding school and Harvard and all this stuff? No, he was a slave, and he had to teach himself how to do all those things, and it’s really a testament to grit and determination and prevailing against all odds that you would be able to reach the intellectual heights that he did with the barriers he faced.” He later added, “His life was spent, obviously, fighting for freedom. Leading in the years before the Civil War, leading opposition to slavery, and then, in the years after that, he was appointed by presidents to serve in various different functions, but was always advocating first for the post-Civil War amendments and then for civil rights legislation after that, and nobody was as powerful as he was in doing that.”
The statue can be seen at the Plaza de la Constitución, where DeSantis says it’s near the site where Douglass spoke to Floridians when he visited St. Augustine. “He delivered a speech right around the corner from here at the Genovar Opera House, which used to stand on St. George Street. It was so impactful that the crowd rose and, impromptu, just started singing the National Anthem. I’ve given a lot of speeches; it’s hard to get people to get up and start singing when you’re done, so that takes some skill,” joked DeSantis.
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