Zócalo Public Square: What Does the Life of Frederick Douglass Tell Us About America?

'From his youth, as a slave growing up in antebellum Maryland, Frederick Douglass saw the double-ness of American life. He recognized the gulf between the nation’s enlightened principles and its racist policies, the fissure between the noble rhetoric of its white ruling class and the violence with which that same class bound African Americans in captivity. And through the lenses of his formidable intellect and his flammable oratory, Douglass later would confront his own double-ness—his simultaneous love for, and rage at, the United States. A packed audience at the National Center for the Preservation of Democracy in downtown Los Angeles wrestled with some of those same contradictions, set to the rhythms of a free-flowing conversation between Yale historian and Douglass biographer David Blight and cultural critic, comedian, and author Baratunde Thurston, who moderated.' --  Zócalo Public Square