Liberating Sojourn: Frederick Douglass and Transatlantic Reform

by Alan J. Rice (Editor), Martin Crawford (Editor)

Still in his twenties but already famous for his fiery orations and controversial autobiography, black abolitionist Frederick Douglass traveled to Great Britain in 1845 on an eighteen-month lecture and fund-raising tour. This book examines how that visit affected transatlantic reform movements and Douglass’s own thinking. The first book dedicated specifically to the trip, it features the work of scholars from both sides of the Atlantic―including Douglass biographer William McFeely and abolitionist scholar R. J. M. Blackett―who use Douglass’s visit to reexamine aspects of his life and times. The contributors reveal the visit’s significance to an understanding of transatlantic gender relations, religion, radicalism, and popular views of African Americans in Britain and also examine such topics as Douglass’s attitudes toward the Irish and his campaign against the Free Church of Scotland for accepting southern money. Together, these essays show that Douglass’s journey was a personal and political triumph and a key event in his development, leaving him better prepared to set the strategies and ideologies of the abolitionist movement.

232 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 1999

Reviews

[Timothy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Published twenty years ago (1999) this collection of essays from a 1995 conference marking the 150th anniversary of Frederick Douglass' first visit to the UK (Ireland, Scotland, and England). Much of the historiography on Douglass had omitted or slighted the role of this, and subsequent visits to the UK on Douglass and the antislavery movement. This was one of several that saw a black Atlantic emerging over the course of the nineteenth century.

Introduced by William S. McFeely -- who had just published an award-winning biography of Douglass (see my review on Goodreads), who calls for Douglass and his active assimilation of ideas and culture as a model for the 1990s. In his text, McFeely mentions the work of a young man named Barack Obama who seems to think one cannot be both/and. McFeely nods to the work of Anne Fausto Sterling on multiple sexualities as proof that one is not confined to dualities. Thus, Douglass and his world are iconic for resisting the rising white nationalism already pervading the 1990s culture. The rest of the collection is uneven, one of the bright spots is an essay on gender and place contrasting Harriet Jacobs to Frederick Douglass.