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February is the 200th anniversary of the
birth of Frederick Douglass, an extraordinary American orator and statesman.
Born into slavery, he escaped and joined the abolitionist movement, working as
a writer, publisher, orator, and Underground Railroad conductor. During the
Civil War he worked actively for the enlistment of black men in the Union Army
and for emancipation. In the Reconstruction era and after, he continued his
fight for equal rights for African Americans and for women. Throughout his
career, he produced several autobiographies and innumerable speeches, some of
the most significant nonfiction writing of his century.
Over the years, NEH has supported notable projects
relating to Douglass, from the digital edition of his Papers, to the dramatic
documentary about his career as an abolitionist. EDSITEment has several lesson
plans about his 1845 Narrative and
also his greatest speech, What to the
Slave is the Fourth of July? Many of his published books are freely
available to download through the Documenting
the American South website.
Papers
Frederick Douglass
Papers Digitial Edition
Video
The Abolitionists
EDSITEment Lesson Plans
Frederick Douglass’s “Narrative”: Myth
of the Happy Slave
What to the Slave is the Fourth of
July?
From Courage to Freedom: Frederick
Douglass’s 1845 Autobiography (3 Lessons)
Humanities magazine articles
Reverberations of the Fourth of July
Frederick Douglass Lived another Fifty Years after
Publishing His First Autobiography
Published Works (from Documenting the American South)
Narrative
of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave. Written by Himself (1845)
The
Heroic Slave. From Autographs for Freedom, Ed. Julia Griffiths (1853)
My
Bondage and My Freedom. Part I. Life as a Slave. Part II. Life as a Freeman (1855)
Life
and Times of Frederick Douglass: His Early Life as a Slave, His Escape from
Bondage, and His Complete History to the Present Time (1881)
Life
and Times of Frederick Douglass (1892)
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