Fanny was about equal playing ground for all peoples. This was shown through her fight for equal rights for women, her desire to free slaves from their forced servitude, and her idea that ALL children should be able to receive education. Whitman’s poetry contains the ideas of all humanity being one. Wright took steps to create one equal humanity in the physical and tangible world. She even created a community, the Nashoba Commune, to try to educate and liberate slaves in a process where they could work towards their emancipation from their slave owners. Ahead of her time. She did her best to make life better for people who had less power than the white male, and put up her own money and time to try and make change. Ahead of her time, and maybe still ahead of our time. A selfless nature seemed to exist in this woman. Song of Myself really is about eliminating the concept of “self” and Wright was one of those people acted without the idea of “self” coming into play much. She was part of a minority that has probably seen the most inequality since the beginning of time (and still sees inequality today) simply being female, yet she fought against the inequalities that other groups faced as well.
Fanny was someone who was down for the revolution. Legitimate revolutions are brought about by underrepresented people coming together to receive justice. Whitman loved to speak on the underrepresented. They would both take in a runaway slave. Look at the words we are seeing in the current revolution… I came across this photo a few weeks ago clicking around Facebook. So many of these signs are Whitman-esque in their inclusiveness. And they embody a spirit like the one found in Frances Wright.
The signs are all songs of myself.
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