rational people are left with no choice. so this cannot be reversed with the global leadership . >> good evening. manager public programs to the

robert h smith with the biography for fall 2018 with a great intellect like to thank edith and her family who are with us tonight for this lecture series. [applause] as well as the ongoing support we do two of these tonight my --dash two of these per year so thank you for tonight also to our trustees and all the councilmembers that are with us for their support tonight. i also just learned we have former assistant governor paterson in the audience with us tonight i would like to recognize him. [applause]

welcome. tonight's program will last an hour it will also include a question-and-answer session q&a will be written questions on notecards as you came into the auditory and you may have received a note card if not staff will go through and give you a card or we will be by to collect them and also a book signing following the program that will take place at the gallery the books will also be for sale out there we hope you join us for that. we are thrilled to last one - - welcome david back as one of the trustees class of 1954 professor of american history director of the center for study of slavery resistance and abolition at yal yale. author or editor of a dozen books which have been awarded the lincoln prize in the

frederick douglass prize among many others the most recent is the prophet of freedom our moderator chair of the center for african-american studies and professor of religion of african-american studies at princeton university the author of several books including democracy and exodus religion and raised in a religion early 19th century black america before we begin please silence any electronic devices please join me to welcome our guest. [applause] . >> how are you all doing? good. welcome. thank you. this is my pleasure.

it's a blessing. let's jump into this. is that okay? it is a wonderful book. by it. [laughter] so talk about the archive and in form us you have access to something that most folks simply have not had access to. >> i have no intention of ever writing this book i had done an early book with a dissertation on douglas in 1989 and the autobiographies et cetera but i had douglas out of my life except for giving talks to teachers i went to savannah georgia about

ten years ago to talk to teaches teachers on his narrative they were at teach on - - teaching so but my host said there is a local collector who wants to meet you and have lunch i said that's fine that collector was walter evans who was now my dear friend and to whom this book is in part dedicated. he took me to his house and got me to his dining room table with his douglas collection. he deserves a moment the more i speak about this i give him as many moments as i can an african-american retired surgeon who grew up in segregated savanna he came north for education the michigan medical school practiced in detroit 30 some years.

which gave us a lot of comment because i grew up in flint although he had season tickets to the tigers and i could never afford them. [laughter] walter started to collect in the seventies african-american rare books and manuscripts and art. and in his remarkable house in savannah is a library of rare books in the african-american tradition he has the first additions but also archive boxes now this should be at the library at yale and we have tried so hard to get him to sell it. [laughter] and walter if you are watching, they are still waitin waiting. [laughter] but what it consisted of in essence are ten very large family scrapbooks during the

last third of their fathers life photographs and a lot of other tidbits that walter bit - - bought overtime mostly from one another collector and what i saw that collection it's one of those moments a historian has such luck when i realized oh god i don't want to do this. [laughter] i don't want to do this i'm going to do this because if i didn't try to work with this material somebody would. a lot of other douglas scholars have gone there most of them i have introduced to walter but if you want to work with his collection you have to spend time on his dining room table one - - table and without that collection i never would have done that in that collection particularly opens up the life of the older douglas which i talk a lot

about the patriarch douglas and the aging douglas that's not the douglas people generally know so that new archive is the reason i did this it is extraordinary in many forms i also had access to miss seeing issues of his newspaper which i will not take how the yale library got them. [laughter] will they bought them in some cases but they have always had missing issues of his newspapers he published it for 16 years and they are gold mines of information and now i have access to every issue. >> so there was this extraordinary attempt one of

the most important american voices of 19th century and we had a story from the political insiders and a story in some ways to reveal a powerful and flawed human being and all too human. so let's think about this in three categories douglas as a prophet and a writer and politician. so talk about this process. >> first i have to say he has really read this book. [laughter] we were chatting away and had some time on the telephone he

is bringing up details i can hardly remember. [laughter] but you put the word profit in your title you be - - better be ready to defend it it's a big word all these years working on douglas with that rhetoric he is deeply steeped in the diebel on - - the bible and in particular the old testament and not surprisingly in the 19th century most intellectuals were. his first reading in serious ways comes not just from the bible but with ministers and preachers in the streets of baltimore in certain churches. but what douglas adopted is not rocket science but the great story of the old testament with the idea of the temple of jerusalem this is

what the great prophet jeremiah and ezekiel were all saying. that the temple had to be destroyed the people were so sinful and poisoned they had to have a reckoning and in that reckoning they would die some would be sent into exile some would probably survive some might even find the promised land. douglas took that great story of exodus and all of the parts along the way and did what so many americans did, especially african-americans and eddie wrote about this why i wanted him to interview me he applied this to his own people and into his own life and especially to his country. . .

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