Frederick Douglass

Frederick Douglass was born in slavery as Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey near Easton in Talbot County, Maryland. He was not sure of the exact year of his birth, but he knew that it was 1817 or 1818. As a young boy he was sent to Baltimore, to be a house servant, where he learned to read and write, with the assistance of his master's wife. In 1838 he escaped from slavery and went to New York City, where he married Anna Murray, a free colored...

"For five decades, from the antebellum period through the Civil War and Reconstruction and into the Gilded Age, he used his voice and wielded his pen in the cause of emancipation, equal rights, and human dignity. Inspired by the Hebrew prophets, Douglass developed a unique oratorical and literary style that combined scriptural cadences with savage irony, moral urgency, and keen insight. Assembled by David W. Blight, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning...

"This collection of Douglasss speeches in Brooklyn displays the power of the former slaves oratory before, during, and after the Civil War. Editor Hamm, a professor of media studies, places a selection of carefully reconstructed speeches in this slim volume, and gives useful context on how they were locally received. A concise introduction provides detail about 19th-century Brooklyn and its conflicted legacy of racial prejudice and abolitionism. When...