By David W. Blight
Release Date: October
16, 2018
The definitive,
dramatic biography of the most important African-American of the nineteenth
century: Frederick Douglass, the escaped slave who became the greatest orator
of his day and one of the leading abolitionists and writers of the era.
As a young man Frederick Douglass (1818-1895) escaped from slavery in
Baltimore, Maryland. He was fortunate to have been taught to read by his slave
owner mistress, and he would go on to become one of the major literary figures
of his time. He wrote three versions of his autobiography over the course of
his lifetime and published his own newspaper. His very existence gave the lie
to slave owners: with dignity and great intelligence he bore witness to the
brutality of slavery.
Initially mentored by William Lloyd Garrison, Douglass spoke widely, often to
large crowds, using his own story to condemn slavery. He broke with Garrison to
become a political abolitionist, a Republican, and eventually a Lincoln
supporter. By the Civil War and during Reconstruction, Douglass became the most
famed and widely travelled orator in the nation. He denounced the premature end
of Reconstruction and the emerging Jim Crow era. In his unique and eloquent
voice, written and spoken, Douglass was a fierce critic of the United States as
well as a radical patriot. He sometimes argued politically with younger
African-Americans, but he never forsook either the Republican party or the
cause of black civil and political rights.
In this remarkable biography, David Blight has drawn on new information held in
a private collection that few other historian have consulted, as well as
recently discovered issues of Douglass’s newspapers. Blight tells the
fascinating story of Douglass’s two marriages and his complex extended family.
Douglass was not only an astonishing man of words, but a thinker steeped in
Biblical story and theology. There has not been a major biography of Douglass
in a quarter century. David Blight’s Frederick Douglass affords this
important American the distinguished biography he deserves.
About the Author
David W. Blight is
Class of 1954 Professor of American History and Director of the Gilder Lehrman
Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition at Yale University.
He is the author or editor of a dozen books, including American Oracle: The
Civil War in the Civil Rights Era; and Race and Reunion: The Civil
War in American Memory; and annotated editions of Douglass’s first two
autobiographies. He has worked on Douglass much of his professional life,
and been awarded the Bancroft Prize, the Abraham Lincoln Prize, and the Frederick
Douglass Prize, among others.
ISBN 978-1416590316, Simon & Schuster, © 2018,
Hardcover, 896 pages, Photographs, Illustrations, End Notes & Index. $37.50. To
purchase this book click HERE.
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