Frederick Douglass: Selected Speeches and Writings

by Frederick Douglass, Philip S. Foner (Editor), Yuval Taylor (Editor)

One of the greatest African American leaders and one of the most brilliant minds of his time, Frederick Douglass spoke and wrote with unsurpassed eloquence on almost all the major issues confronting the American people during his life—from the abolition of slavery to women’s rights, from the Civil War to lynching, from American patriotism to black nationalism. Between 1950 and 1975, Philip S. Foner collected the most important of Douglass’s hundreds of speeches, letters, articles, and editorials into an impressive five-volume set, now long out of print. Abridged and condensed into one volume, and supplemented with several important texts that Foner did not include, this compendium presents the most significant, insightful, and elegant short works of Douglass’s massive oeuvre.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, American, Biography, African American, Philosophy

808 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1999

About the author

Frederick Douglass (né Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey) was born a slave in the state of Maryland in 1818. After his escape from slavery, Douglass became a renowned abolitionist, editor and feminist. Having escaped from slavery at age 20, he took the name Frederick Douglass for himself and became an advocate of abolition. Douglass traveled widely, and often perilously, to lecture against slavery.

His first of three autobiographies, The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave, was published in 1845. In 1847 he moved to Rochester, New York, and started working with fellow abolitionist Martin R. Delany to publish a weekly anti-slavery newspaper, North Star. Douglass was the only man to speak in favor of Elizabeth Cady Stanton's controversial plank of woman suffrage at the first women's rights convention in Seneca Falls, New York, in 1848. As a signer of the Declaration of Sentiments, Douglass also promoted woman suffrage in his North Star. Douglass and Stanton remained lifelong friends.

In 1870 Douglass launched The New National Era out of Washington, D.C. He was nominated for vice-president by the Equal Rights Party to run with Victoria Woodhull as presidential candidate in 1872. He became U.S. marshal of the District of Columbia in 1877, and was later appointed minister resident and consul-general to Haiti. His District of Columbia home is a national historic site. D. 1895.

More: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederic...

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4p1...

http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/exhi...

http://www.loc.gov/collection/frederi...

http://www.nps.gov/frdo/index.htm

http://www.cr.nps.gov/museum/exhibits...

Reviews

[Anna Marie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very thought provoking material, very dense.

[Alison Rymer · Rating 4 out of 5]

His intelligence and insight are overwhelming. His speeches blew me away. Very powerful and inspiring.

[Caitlin · Rating 3 out of 5]

This isn't a book to get from the library and try to read all of before it needs to be returned. The writing runs together that way.

[Alison · Rating 4 out of 5]

His intelligence and insight are overwhelming. His speeches blew me away. Very powerful and inspiring.