WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris and Irish Prime Minister Micheál Martin met virtually on Wednesday with 22 college students who will retrace the journey of Black abolitionist Frederick Douglass to Ireland 175 years ago to escape slavery.
The students won competitive scholarships for a month of study this summer in Ireland, where Douglass spent four months in 1845 and where his legacy endures.
Martin told the students that Douglass, then 27, described his time in Ireland as among the happiest of his life because he was treated not “as a color but as a man – not as a thing, but as a child of the common Father of us all.”
Harris said Douglass’ time in Ireland allowed him to feel truly free for the first time.
“You are walking in great footsteps,” she said. “I’m counting on all of you to live up to that potential.”
The program, coordinated by the Council on International Educational Exchange (CIEE) and co-sponsored by the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs, is supported by Nettie Washington Douglass, the great-great-granddaughter of Frederick Douglass.
She said the warm welcome her ancestor received across Ireland affected him profoundly. “I can think of no better place for future American leaders to gain a global perspective and prepare to be agents of change,” she told the students.
Brielle Smith, a student at Howard University, the alma mater of Harris, said in an interview that it went “beyond my wildest imaginations” to meet Harris and the Irish prime minister.
“One of my dream jobs is as press secretary in the Department of State, and being able to see that literally tells me that the doors are opening, and I just think it’s amazing,” she said.
(Reporting by Andrea Shalal, Editing by Rosalba O’Brien)
