ABSTRACT
David Ruggles story is worth telling at some length because, in many ways, his life illustrates the struggles leaders faced in establishing and defending their manhood. The early years of relative acceptance by white society contributed to Ruggles' full definition of manhood as including both its private and public aspects. He would attempt to live as a complete man. Recalling the distinction between the private and public meanings of manhood for African American leaders can help us to understand what was happening to Ruggles. Rosetta Douglass wedded to a view of manhood that sought middle class respectability all else, could see nothing but ingratitude in the response of the mass of Northern African Americans. The leaders' vision of freedom, in turn, affected the goals they sought and the means they used to achieve those goals. African Americans leaders, in sum, sought a respectable lifestyle that would give the lie to claims that African Americans were inferior and fit only for slavery.
