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 his unique and eloquent voice, written and spoken, Douglass was a fierce critic of the United States as well as a radical patriot. He denounced the premature end of Reconstruction and the emerging Jim Crow era. By the Civil War and during Reconstruction, Douglass became the most famed and widely travelled orator in the nation. He broke with Garrison to become a political abolitionist, a Republican, and eventually a Lincoln supporter.

Initially mentored by William Lloyd Garrison, Douglass spoke widely, often to large crowds, using his own story to condemn slavery. His very existence gave the lie to slave owners: with dignity and great intelligence he bore witness to the brutality of slavery. He wrote three versions of his autobiography over the course of his lifetime and published his own newspaper. 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. “'Frederick Douglass' Provides Authoritative Context for an Important American Life” - Christian Science MonitorĪs a young man Frederick Douglass (1818-1895) escaped from slavery in Baltimore, Maryland. “‘Frederick Douglass’ Review: His Tongue the Pen of God” - The Wall Street Journal “Complex Look at Frederick Douglass with a Lesson for Trump Era” - The Boston Globe “Frederick Douglass Never Stopped Fighting for Black Liberation” - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette “Frederick Douglass, Prophet of Freedom by David W.

“The Prophetic Pragmatism of Frederick Douglass” - The New Yorker “‘Frederick Douglass’ Is An Extended Meditation On The Legend's Self-Invention” - NPR “BLIGHT: Frederick Douglass (2018)” - The Civil War Monitor “A Big New Biography Treats Frederick Douglass as Man, Not Myth” - New York Times “The Double Battle: Frederick Douglass’s Moral Crusade” - The Nation “Review: 'Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom,' by David W. “Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom review: a monumental biography” - The Guardian “Frederick Douglass in Full” - New York Times Sunday Book Review Blight’s ‘Frederick Douglass’” - San Francisco Chronicle “‘Radical Patriot’: A Review of David W. “Frederick Douglass Biography by Yale Historian a Lesson for our time” - New Haven Register “The Confounding Truth About Frederick Douglass” - The Atlantic “Frederick Douglass: From hunted fugitive slave to brilliant elder statesman” - Washington Post

Book Reviews: “The self-made man” - The Times Literary Supplement 2018 Los Angeles Book Prize for Biography Awards: William Henry Seward Award for Excellence in Civil War Biography

Frederick douglass book david blight