the workplace and certainly women who have been able to fight through a number of challenges to be where they are. i'm glad to be one of them and proud and thankful to be here so thank you so much. [applause] .. they argue that washington bureaucrats are seeking to undermine the presidency of donald trump. also we bring you several stops from the former first. in her memoir, becoming. visit booktv.org for the complete schedule. no kick off our weekend of

nonfiction author and books with yale university history professor, david blight.he recalls a life of public intellectual and orator, frederick douglass. [inaudible conversations] >> good evening everyone welcome to the historical society. it is a joy to welcome you to our robert h smith auditorium. two nights program, frederick douglass is a matthew mike biography for fall of 2018. it was founded in honor of the late mike gladstone, a great intellect and passion i like to think you've got seen in her family can -- [applause], as

well for the ongoing support we do to these a year keep an eye out this spring for the next mike gladstone lecture and biography. i would also like to thank and recognize all of the members tonight for their great work and support. i also just learned that we have the former assistant governor with us in the auditorium tonight we would like to thank him. [applause] welcome. tonight program will last an hour. it will also include a question-and-answer session. it will be conducted via written questions on note cards.as you're coming to the auditorium, whom he received a note card or a pencil. if not, will have staff going through the program and will

give you a card and also be around to collect them as well. also, there will be a formal book signing following the book signing with david blight. that will be in the smith gallery. the books also be for sale out there. we do hope you join us for that. at last, were thrilled to welcome david blight back. in addition to be one of our esteemed trustees he's a class of 1954 professor of american history and director of the center for the study of slavery, resistance and -- the frederick douglass prize as well as many others. our moderator this evening is eddie glaude, chair of the center for african-american studies and william s todd professor of religion and african-american studies at princeton university. he is the author of several books including democracy, how

racist of slaves, the american soul and exodus, religion, race and nation in early 19th century black america. before we begin as always we ask you to please silence any electronic devices and cell phones.please join me in welcoming our guest. [applause] >> how are y'all doing? good! good! welcome. >> thank you, for joining us. >> this is my pleasure, it is a blessing. let's jump into this, is that okay? it is a wonderful book. david, talk a little bit about the archive. that informs us magisterial

text. you had access to something that most folks simply have not had access to. >> yeah, had no intention of ever writing a full life of frederick douglass. i did an early book on him a dissertation on him, in 1989 that had been hints, two autobiographies, etc. but i had douglass kind of out of my life. [laughter] except for giving talks on the narrative to teachers and i went to savannah, georgia. five or 10 years ago to go talk to teachers on his narrative because they were teaching it. and apologies to some of you may have heard the story. but my host at the georgia historical society said, there is a local collector who wants to meet you. and have lunch. and i said, that's fine. that collector was walter evans. who is now a dear, dear friend. to whom this book is in part,

dedicated. he took me over to his house and on his dining room table, his douglass collection. walter is, he deserves a moment here. everywhere i speak about this, i give walter when i can. he's an african american surgeon the clip in segregated savannah. he came north for education. went to the michigan medical school, practiced in detroit for 30 some years. which gave us a latin, because i grew up in michigan. although, he had season tickets to the tigers and i could never afford them. [laughter] at any rate, walter started collecting in the 1970s. african-american rare books, manuscripts and art. and in his remarkable house in savannah, is a library.

of rare books. name any book in the african-american tradition, he has a first edition. it is chock-full of archive boxes. this step should be at the library at yale and we have tried to get him to sell it. [laughter] and walter, if you're watching, they are still waiting. but, what it consisted of in essence are about 10 very large family scrapbooks kept by douglass sons during the last third of their father's life. also a lot of family papers and letters. autographs, and a lot of other tidbits that walter bought overtime. mostly from another collector. and when i saw the collection it was one of those moments a historian really has such luck where i realize, o god, i don't want to do this.

i don't want to do this. i am going to do this. because if i did not try to work with this material, someone else would. a lot of other douglass scholars have now gone there. most of them i've introduced to walter. but if you want to work with his collection, you spend time on his dining table. i spent several spring breaks there and a lot of weeks. without that collection i'd never have done this and particularly the collection opens up the life of the older douglass which we talk a lot about. the aging douglass. the patriarch douglass. and that is not the douglass people generally know. they know the younger, heroic douglass. that new archive is the reason i did this. the douglass archive is extraordinary! and then in many forms, a lot of it digitized. not all of it though.

i also had access to some missing issues of the newspaper at which the yale libraries, i will not take how they got them. well, they bought them in some cases but, they have always been missing issues of the frederick douglass newspaper. he published the newspaper for 16 years. and they are gold mines of information. and i got access not to i believe, every issue of the douglass newspaper. >> the result is this extraordinary account of one of the most important american voices of the 19th century. and we get a story from radical outsider to political insider. it is a story that in some ways, reveals a powerful and flawed human being. all too human douglass in some ways. and celeste think about this in

terms of three categories. douglas as prophet. >> i like that one. >> douglas as a writer. >> i like that one too. >> and douglas as a politician. talk a little bit about his prophet of freedom. >> first had to say, eddie has really read this book. [laughter] and it is a little scary! we were chatting away and had some time on the telephone too. he is bringing up things i can hardly remember. [laughter] if you put the word prophet in your title you better be ready to defend it because it is a big big word. you cannot miss that he is deeply steeped in the bible and particularly the old testament.

now, that is not surprising in the 19th century. many people, most intellectuals were. not all, but most. his first reading in serious ways, comes not just in reading the bible but in reading with ministers, with preachers. in the streets of baltimore in in certain churches in baltimore. but what douglass adopted is not rocket science. he adopted the great story of the old testament. the idea that the temple of jerusalem, as with the great prophet jeremiah and ezekiel and amos were all saying. that the temple had to be destroyed. the people had become so sinful, so poisoned, they had to have a reckoning. and in that reckoning, many of them will die. some of them would be sent into

exile. some of them would probably survive the exile. some of them might even find the promised land. douglass took the great story of exodus and all of its perks along the way, and he did what so many americans do. especially african americans. and eddie has written about this. it is one of the things why wanting to interview me. he took the exodus story and he applied it to his own people. and to his own life. and especially to his country. now, it makes him at times, sometimes sort of bloodthirsty. it makes him unpleasant to receive especially in the midst of the civil war when he becomes a war propagandist. with the death of every white southerner in words that are not pleasant. to say the least. he did, what hebrew prophets did in that confounding

language of the old testament. he was able to find language at times, to express a dilemma. to explain the historical condition. to explain and irony. to explain something terrible out of which they might be possibility. it sent me in the course of working on this book to theology friends, theologian friends i should say. some of them may even be here. donald schriever. if you are here tonight, god bless you. he told me david, read walter and so-and-so and so-and-so. my good friend, richard rabinowitz said you can read robert alter and so-and-so and so-and-so. and i was trying to teach myself about the hebrew prophets. that he was paraphrasing and using. and i came to realize, particularly for meeting abraham, a great theologian.

that a prophet is sometimes that person in our society and our lives, perhaps from the religious world. sometimes may be more from the political world. and some from both at the same time. who as heschel said sometimes speak in octaves the rest of us cannot quite hear. but we have recognition from it anyway. or as heschel also said the prophet is often the writer that spokesperson who has been shattered by some cataclysmic experience and therefore can shatter others. and douglass had a terrible shattering in his 20 years as a slave. an experience that was burned into his soul. and i think scarred him psychologically. i cannot prove that but i can suggest it. all you need to do is to dip

into one or another of many of his various great speeches. take 4 july speech. if that is not a prophetic word of rhetoric i'm not sure any american ever rogue one. it is the rhetorical masterpiece, a classic jeremiah, defined as that kind of rhetoric, that story that calls the people back to the altar, back to their cause, back to their principles, back to their proper way. or face damnation. 4 july speech is like a symphony. and the middle movement is horrible. the final movement barely let you back. so, there are many places in the life of douglass.

in the oratory and in his writing, when you can begin to find these elements. was he always self-conscious of that? no. i do not know of any instance where he called himself a prophet. hello i am here today to be a prophet. a real prophet doesn't do that. and heschel tells you a real prophet doesn't tell you he's a prophet. that he is going to hurt you will he teaches you. and douglass did that. over and over again. it doesn't mean that he's always right, by any means. and it doesn't mean that he's always prophetic by any means. especially the older douglass the struggles with all kinds of you know contradictions and conflicts. in the last third of his life. >> we think about young douglass it is prophetic voice. what is his relation in a sense in which there is this moment, some part of the story that you

tell is this ongoing act of self creation that is his life. and we have a young douglas and african-american studies at princeton and you can just see the fires in his eyes and sculpture. >> a good sculpture. >> absolute, you can see it. it is intense. in the intensity has something to do with his rage against the institution, the kind of moral stridency and then you see a story. in the midst of this, there is this insistence on his sense of self possession. it's an interesting source of ways alongside, talk about that. >> douglas sortable himself into existence publicly.

he is 20 years a slave in maryland, eastern shore of maryland. then baltimore. he escapes in 1838, he spends three years in bedford massachusetts working at all kinds of menial jobs. he and melva were in new bedford in the same part of the same year and lots of scholars tried to have them meet. [laughter] but a novelist must have the meat because we cannot find that meeting. [laughter] it is just not there. but -- it does not mean it did not use moby dick for an epigraph on that chapter. >> exactly! quickly calls -- i think that is an epigraph. he begins to also preach at the local ame zion church. he is 20, 21 and 22 years old.

he is just out of slavery. he is not perfectly formed by any means. by any means! as an orator yet or as a thinker yet. who is at 22? but he gets discovered by garisonians. garrison was a genuine radical. believed in immediatism which means ending slavery now. he also had some principles and strategies that were very difficult for a frederick douglass. in that matter a lot of black abolitionists to follow. such as strict nonviolence.

such as strict non-politics. you did not get involved in political parties. the political parties were complicit with slavery. they were dirty institutions. he had to get your hands dirty in politics. douglas will take time to leave that one behind but he will learn politics. as you're going to point out. he loved willing -- william lloyd garrison. he was a father figure to some degree. particularly for young men that was a genuine orator. one of the things you need to know about frederick douglass, he barely knew his mother and he never knew his father was. although he knew that he was biracial. that is about how he could conclude. the rest of his life spent trying to figure it out. but the garrisonian were his first abolitionist home. he was called them his church. he said they are my church, my

community. and once they discovered him as a speaker and took him up in nantucket to do his first public speech in august 1841, he still was this trembling kid. he said, i shook in my shoes as i got up to speak for the first time to white people. but they discovered in him a young man with a voice. not just in orators voice but story. and he was already a good storyteller. and he had been preaching in the zion church from the text you know on sundays when it was his job to preach. he knew how to do that. so for the next three and half years, they hired him. he went out on the road and a garrisonian in mind and body as i called him in here because that is the way he came to feel about it. dayton and day out, months

across the north. first just in new england and eventually all the way out to ohio. backbreaking tours. he would tour with groups, those first three or four years he traveled especially with abby kelly. stephen foster, they were married. and some others. garrison himself at times. this is where douglass cut his teeth. he told the line non-politics, no violence, etc. at the end of this period, he decides to sit down in the winter of 1844/ 45. somehow summed up all of the stories he'd been telling on the circuit. what he did was two things. he told his own tail. he told his story as a slave

which is all there in the narrative. episode after episode of a fight or learning literacy for ms. sophia, all of the beatings and the terrible whippings that he witnessed and experienced. but he also perfected his favorite speech. at least at first. which was known as the slaveholders sermon. the slaveholders sermon was frederick douglass trotting out the passage of the bible where it says, slaves, obedient to your masters. and he would get up and he would mimic a proslavery minister. he would prance around the stage, go into a southern accent. the hypocrisy of christian slaveholding. he was a star at it. i got to a point where he will go, there always, the system was they would always have a resolution to speak to. two or three resolutions that you spoke to war against.

and he was start to speak to the resolution but the audience was start saying, to the sermon! [laughter] and he would say all right. and he would break into the slaveholders sermon. he kept doing that kind of speech for years and years and years. but this is where he cut his teeth. as a radical abolitionist employing the only weapon they had, which was language, words, power of the word, spoken. and then, written of course in newspapers.>> there is a sense in which douglass, cutting his teeth, in some ways, drawing on the language of the king james bible. a writers manual, they carried with him. that he carried with him, a sense in which he understood the importance of rhetoric. and as role.

quincy never read aristotle. but he surely could have. >> but he seems to understand the way in which he's embodied that lesson of rhetoric. >> and a orator must have a moral position. must reach the hearts of the audience. not just their minds. >> the biography in so many ways seems to be organized along the lines where each autobiography, kind of constitutes anchor. she had the early douglas and then you are this rageful douglas and then you have the life and times. and so, in each moment as you say, douglass is writing himself into existence. there is a way which he understood the power of linkage. you call him an ironist in the text. he is having issues, beginning to be a break but he is fine-tuning his craft.

talk a little about douglass as a literary figure. this writer of sorts. >> there is a, a letter that he writes to the editor of the first journal he first published something in. it was in late fall of 1844. just as he was starting to write the narrative. he writes this first little essay. very short. and he says, in the letter to that editor, but to write for a book, i wonder if i can write a book. and all of us that our writers have that moment. the first time you imagine, i'm going to write a book. how about that? or maybe i will write a book. and clearly, he wanted to put this first narrative just because he wanted to say this is who i am, this is my story. don't doubt me, i am real.

he wanted to name his oppressors, which he did. but douglass came by language when he was a slave. and he continued over and over and over in his free life, after he escaped from slavery. in have to remember that he lives 20 years a slave in that he lives in other seven years as a fugitive slave. so his british friends bought his freedom. but he is always, in those years, the 1840s and 1850s. i would say even into civil war years, trying to perfect his writing style. his craft. and the remarkable thing about douglass, and there lots of flaws he had, including with his writing. all writing is flawed. he wrote in summary different genres. he wrote autobiography, 1200 pages of autobiography.

that he had suggested. his life is punctuated with these three autobiographies. the first january 18, 1945, only 27 years old. the second one, 10 years later when he is 37. in the middle of the 1850s. his masterpiece, my bondage and my freedom, a 350 page autobiography which is a much more political book. it is in the midst of the great crisis of the 1850s. over slavery. he's also lives a lot more. and he's become a very different kind of abolitionist. the third in 1881. the old man kind of summing things up. the life and times of frederick douglass. it is a text that is full of name dropping. he wants to know all the famous people he knows, the president that he is advised and on and on. on the other hand, for us scholars, it is a gold mine of just stuff. stories, events, details. we know about his relationship

with john brown especially down to the attack of -- we know from the text. and he revises the third when another time in 1892. so the autobiography is wonderful but he mastered the short form political editorial. the political essay for his newspaper. he could write in a very different voice there. he could go after political issue. whether it is kansas, nebraska, the dred scott decision or whatever it is. and just kind of nail it in 400 words. he also wrote these elaborate speeches. as texts, 4 july speech is a masterpiece of writing first. and there's a letter we said, i work for three weeks on this. he said that worked longer on this than anything else i've ever delivered. and you can tell. if i can ever get him in a room and ask him, one of my hundred questions, i would ask him, what did you read before that speech? come on! where are your notes?

and then, he wrote one work of fiction. he wrote a novella. some would say the autobiographies were fiction he'd been practicing that already.but in 1852/53 he writes a novella based on the rebellion led by a slave named madison washington on a ship. a real event. so he wrote and he tried poetry. there is a fair amount of poetry that he wrote. not his best form. [laughter] he wrote prose poetry. at time magic with metaphors. my friend, the greatest jim mcpherson wrote a essay called, how abraham lincoln won the civil war with metaphors. some of your main remember that by jim. i would not say that douglass won the civil war with metaphors but he certainly taught us a lot in the 19th century by his metaphors. he had a way of capturing a

moment or dilemma sometimes. in a metaphor that he would draw from the bible or shakespeare or just make it up. so he becomes a skilled writer who never is completely satisfied with his craft. >> there is a wonderful passage on page 259. just -- all great autobiography is about loss. about the hopeless, the necessary request to retrieve and control the past that forever slips away. memory is both inspiration and burden. method and subject. the thing one cannot live with or without. so douglass -- pretty good, right?

almost manic. and the way in which he is constantly returning to -- and we talked about this earlier. i am obsessed with james baldwin. in his constantly retelling the story and he's consulate telling the story. he is telling it in order to possess it. because he is, it is an act of self creation. so he is rendering this narrative in order to somewhat constitute itself. this is what we mean by writing itself into existence. so you have this moment emerson, douglas is this embodiment of emerson's -- he's witnessed, you quote - a passage where there is this moment where this gorgeous chapter on douglass and lincoln. we are given an account of the founding through their back and forth and what emerges is these

two features become absolutely central to the founding.the second funding of the country. then of course, at the end, the old man still is trying to find the day he was born. >> yeah. >> he is trying to write life and times. i mean, there's something going on here. is about trying to retrieve, douglass. let him know that i read that to quote - that. [laughter] remember, we began by saying powerful, have the sense of the interior life as much as the archive would allow you. >> probably a little more than the archives. [laughter] there's a moment when you quote - douglass where he says in effect, his experience of slavery, i am paraphrasing this

part. effected his ability for filial affection. at the way he even loved. >> yeah, i speculate on that. because, and others have. douglass is scored -- scarred by this life. he experienced about every kind of brutality slavery could throw at you. especially, the emotional brutality. and he said that himself many times. protecting his mind, he said, was much harder than protecting his body. >> yeah. >> he was beaten savagely by at least one owner in one overseer. he witnessed all kinds of savage beatings. at the white house plantation. even witnessed colonel lloyd himself, the owner of the whole place, beat old bernie.

the guy that kept the carriage house, to a bloody pulp one day. he was seven years old witnessing this stuff. and many elements of where, many moments where memory is so important and trying to understand douglass. but i found one of them, and i didn't think this ahead of time until his writing this first chapters. what do we remember about childhood? how do we remember childhood? how do we find prompts to remember childhood? he is re-creating that childhood over and over in his life. and he is telling us over and over how terribly important it was. both for all of this brutality of slavery but also for his humane sensibilities. he loves this white woman who fed him biscuits out the window

if he would sing for her. he loved her. he left sophia. when she taught him to read until she stopped teaching them to read. and he talks about how an angel could become a devil. slavery could make an angel. but the ways that he cultivates that childhood memory to try to understand what it did to him. it's remarkable in a got me off reading a bunch of toxicology. most of what i didn't use. no offense to anyone. i tried to read a bunch of toxicology on how to remember childhood and i read a bunch of them i said let's go back and read douglass. [laughter] but then later in life he's all about memory. his about the memory of the civil war in trying to preserve that abolitionist,

emancipationist, that's radical anyway. he's also trying to line up his own life. anyone in here who's ever tried to write anything in the genre of memoir, knows that your costly tried to figure out what goes in and what doesn't go in and what can i trust? in my memory and what can i not trust? what in my memory makes a great story? what doesn't? but it's also true at the end of the day that douglas seems to believe that he had one great story to tell. and that was his story. and he kept doing it. kept doing it. at the same time he wrote great speeches and on philosophical issues and on legal issues, but the tale of his own life was always what he searching for and as he suggested, then only three or four months before he died he writes benjamin -- one of thomas his sons, thomas auld

has been one of his own is potentially his father that we don't know. he writes to benjamin auld and says, do you know when my birthday was? i can't find it. can you help me at all? which is also another way of asking, is your father my father? he even bent his deathbed as some of you know. when thomas was dying to know he did not die for nine months but it seems like it was his deathbed. he went back to the shore about four times after the war. eventually with paparazzi in tow. everywhere he went he had the press with him. he went to thomas auld 's deathbed and said are you my father? and he did not get a yes which is one of the reason i don't think it is his father but doesn't stop trying to find out. because he knows he has white kinfolk. he has lots of white kinfolk. he had black kinfolk he didn't know. they found him later in life. he not only had four surviving

adult children and 21 grandchildren, he had some siblings that either adopted him or he adopted them out of slavery. all of them end up at cedar hill, the big house in washington. at one time or another, they all die there and are all buried there. cedar hill became a place of funerals in the 1880s and 1890s. >> how many of the 21 grandkids? >> 14 of the grandchildren died in infancy or by their teenagers. the death of children the 19th century was not uncommon. but this was -- the last four or five in one month in a diphtheria epidemic. he doesn't write about that in the biographies of course. >> let me talk about we talked about douglass the prophet, the

writer, this figure that, jealously guards, the one who jealously guarded this position as a black leader. the old man who was -- but talk about this douglass. quincy did not like the young rivals either. douglass love being king of the hill. and those that tried to knock him off, he did some ugly things. anyway, douglas earns politics. in the crucible of the 1850s. the decade that lisa civil war, as a garrisonian he was supposed to leave clinical parties alone. garrison himself was a very political man. a cousin according speeches by henry clay and then said, don't vote. there's got to be a bit of contradiction to some of the followers.

but douglass into the early 1850s, the slavery crisis especially overexpansion, is exploding across the country and the political parties are tearing themselves apart. douglass comes to realize, this is a hugely political question as well as a moral question. he also gets like a lot of garrisonian moral suasion he became quite impatient with moral persuasion. you can keep trying to change a persons heart forever and ever. but at some point, you may just need to bend someone's will and change a lot if you can. he loved politics. but he only shouldered up to it carefully in the 1850s. and and at first he considered himself a free sawyer. he goes the first free soil contention and they call him up to speak. he didn't quite know what to do

with the first republican party in 1854 although he was kind of excited. this is a political party. this is antislavery sermon against the expansion of slavery. and he begins to develop. i spend two or three chapters on this. he has a partner in pragmatism about this. and he realizes he may have to make relationships here with people you do not like. whose principles you can't stand. but they actually can make things happen. he began to realize the republican party from 54 through 56, 58 and 1860 when lincoln runs, is causing the south grief. the enemy is the enemy my friend. he also came sold to trust some republicans. . chase, sumner, wade and others pretty does not know lincoln

yet only by reputation. he followed lincoln in the lincoln/douglas debates.a lot. and actually followed stephen douglass a lot too. i was lucky to have a fellow studying that turns out stephen douglass and frederick douglass had a quick giving exchange. i never knew that. he becomes a republican for sure in the civil war because the republican party was waging war against slavery. at least it eventually was. and as many in this room know, douglass was a ferocious critic of abraham lincoln because the union government was not moving against slavery. in fact, it was protecting fugitive slaves and sending them back or trying to. but with the preliminary emancipation proclamation, the final proclamation january 1863, douglas not only changed

his tune, he appropriated lincoln as he appropriated him. he saw that what was now the civil war had now become one lincoln had not wanted to become. and lincolns famous words, he did not want to become a remorseless revolutionary struggle. but that's exactly what had become. the rest of his life, after 1864 he would campaign every year for the republican candidate. the republican party would decide what states ascendancy. so there were free black voters in the state they would go there. there were other sections of the country they thought he would work well in. upper new england and some reason indiana.he was always sent to indiana. that was a swing state 19th century. [laughter] and douglas would campaign week after week for

hayes, garfield, etc. and sometimes, he would wonder why. because that republican party was really changing. and abandoning his cause and the cause of emancipation, the civil rights, black voting rights, the 13, 14th and 15th amendment. but he never gave up on the republican party. to round it out a little bit, it is quite an issue today. like all great questions in history that matter. this has a huge legacy because today's, let's just call them libertarian, the republican right, libertarian right -- the cato institute right loves to appropriate douglass because he was a staunch proponent of self-reliance. of blacks raising themselves by their own institution and their own hard work.

and their own thrift and so on. but every black leader in the 19th century to speak of, was a proponent of self-reliance. it is not unusual. but sometimes, the ways this gets portrayed today, and political discussion, the way douglass gets appropriated now, it drives me bit crazy because to do that you absolutely have this life of radical abolitionist. but it is good news because douglass is become a little bit like abraham lincoln. everyone wants to have them on their side. everyone wants to claim douglass.he is on our side, no, he is on our side. what would douglass do if this? i get asked this all the time what would he think of different movements and donald trump -- i thought that might not come up tonight! he would say, no. i'm not going there. >> you do something so

wonderful and beautiful in the text. sit a word about anna. >> annamarie, that was his first wife of 44 -- anna. she was three years old and born free out on the eastern shore, just on the other side of the tuckahoe river from where she was born.they probably played at the same mill when they were kids. but they didn't know each other until baltimore. they fell in love in baltimore. he escaped from slavery. in late august 1838. and anna had a sterner bravery to pack her bags and wait for a letter when frederick got to new york city, chamber street down on the lower west side and found himself safe within 48 hours.

at the house of david -- he writes a letter back to baltimore. we did not know he wrote the letter to. but however, he wrote it to win immediately to anna. anna took the same three trains in the same three fairies and was in new york in the same 38 hours to join him. and that was an extraordinary act of bravery. she was free. she was born free. and if they'd been caught, well, we would not have ever known about either one of them. she remained his help mate for all of those decades. mother his five children. she remained illiterate all of her life. by and large. and it was a problem. the most famous african-american man of letters in the world, most famous black man in the world, was married to an illiterate woman.

who could not be part of that professional intellectual life. in meaningful ways. she was very much part of his life in a lot of other ways. we know, what we know about her, not entirely but largely from what the children wrote about her. and one of the things in the walter evans collection in savannah, are two new narratives written by two of the sons. rose had the one that the door in a row. rosetta, but there are two narratives there. when entitled growing up in the douglass home. a narrative about the parents. and so every stage, i tried to find my way into her life. you cannot make, there are no documents to anna wrote. you know, no letters. but there are lots of little testimonies about her.

she kept account books. she kept the bank books.she did numbers. when he didn't. [laughter] and she provided a home and never, if you get to know douglass at all you will sense this. he was desperate to make and preserve a home because he'd never had one. and that is what she represented to him. >> let's go to some of the questions from the audience. >> great.>> one of the first questions, or that frederick douglass was biased against native americans. is this true? >> someone has read a copy of the page. yes. biased is one of those big words. yes. he trafficked in some indian stereotypes. no question. for example, when he sometimes

would make the case after the civil war in particular, for the upright and the ambitions of black people, white people should stop worrying about black folks. let them vote, let them on land, let them get educated. they want to be americans. he would often trot out the image of the vanishing indian. he would sometimes do it and not very pleasant language. like, the indian just want to wrap himself in a blanket and walk off into his hills where is a black man wants to own a company and wants to get into the best school and so forth. it is not, it is not pretty. it is 1/19 century stereotype that was all over the culture. but i have had students who read chapters of this and at a seminar i taught and it is jarring when they read it. they want douglass to be in everywhere and forever advocate of indian rights. they wanted to be against the

reservations. he thought the reservations were probably the proper thing. so, all too human. >> all too human. the relationship between douglass and grant. >> is very important. they never got very close. grant becomes president of course in 1868. douglass had been a distant admirer of his. like all yankees work. grant appoints into a commission. in 1877, the santo domingo commission was a commission sent to what is now the dominican republic. to discuss with the leadership of the dominican republic or santo domingo, whether the u.s. would annex it. they were trying to annex santo

domingo. douglass was after the secretary for this commission. not an official member of the commission. and he took one of his sons along with him and kept a diary on this three month trip into the caribbean. actually he went swimming in the surf one day and almost drowned according to his diary. but grant put them on the commission and douglass advocated for the annexation. douglass became expansionist after the civil war. there are reasons for that. lots of abolitionists did. at this point douglass this was 1870/71. reconstruction hasn't fallen apart yet. the clan is raging everywhere. but reconstruction hasn't fallen apart yet. frederick douglass was among the large group perform abolitionists who now argue the united states is now an abolitionist country. we are the nation of emancipation and we should export it. we should take the 13, 14 and 15th amendment to the world.

especially still slave societies like in the caribbean. and give them our ideas. that is not unfamiliar to us. americans of all stripes have done this for a very long time. but when they come back from santo domingo commission, grant invited the commissioners to the white house for a special dinner. he did not invite douglas. not a pleasant thing. but he always, at least from a distance, admired grant. in fact, in 1876, he wanted grant to run again. he didn't know how to trust the other candidates. >> despite the -- >> despite the scandal, there were so many scandals. he thought grant would probably, what he wanted republicans to win. he did not think grant can lose. but they never had a truly close relationship. which is always made me triply fascinated with the speech

douglass gives, the second greatest speech the unveiling of the lincoln monument in lincoln park and washington. ulysses grant sitting right up in the front row. douglass give a speech and grant pulled the rope that unveiled that. i went to grants papers to think what did grant think? what did grant think? nothing there. grant must've gone back to have a nap at the white house. didn't say a word about it. he should have. >> yeah. how did the rise of jim crow impact douglass? a really interesting question. >> the rise of jim crow in the early 19th century really had an impact on him because douglas got thrown off lots of trains. he got jim crowed more times in his life they can company by hotels, taverns, restaurants. trains, stagecoaches. it got to be a source of humor

for him at times. and -- sorry. but later, the period we often talk about the drives of jim crow by the 1880s and 1890s, douglass lives to see it. he lives until 1895. they've passed the first disfranchisement law in 1890. douglass lives to see the beginnings of bitter segregation. in the late 80s and 90s. he does not live to see its fruition in the early 20th century. but nothing about it as much as i can tell, surprised him. because he had experienced all of the antebellum over and over and over. although, he always referred to things like being jim crowed, a form of segregation. legal or otherwise. as another variation of

proslavery ideas. he would just call it, proslavery vision reconstructed. the proslavery tradition brought back to life. for him, it was the resurrection of slavery. that is the way he knew how to understand it. >> that wonderful phrase that you use, the infinite manifestation of racism is our national fate. >> is a closet a -- he calls it a national faith. >> also the civil war and emancipation why was so important because it had begun its long you know, but it had -- >> how influential was douglass and getting the women's suffrage passed at seneca falls? >> and nothing was crucial in getting the resolution passed. he was the only male speaker. the only black participant who

signed the seneca falls declaration of rights. that he was there, that he gave his presence to this event, was huge. and he was from that time on, even before, always a women's rights man. he wrote essays entitled i may women's rights man. he was always for women's rights. he was also a patriarch in many ways in his private life. it did not make him that unusual. for some reformers and radicals and abolitionists. but he was all in on women's suffrage, women's economic rights and women's civil rights until the 14th and 15th amendments. and he is a terrible breakup is unit with elizabeth cady and susan anthony and by any measure, misbehaved badly in the way they treated douglass

was all kinds of, especially stanton, racist. not just aimed at douglass but at black men. they were fed up, they did not want to wait any longer. they wanted women in the 15th amendment but everybody with one eye open understood women's suffrage never would have passed. everyone knew that. but to stanton and anthony at that point, it put us in or you can have your country back. douglass didn't have that choice. it is one of those moments in his life when he has to make decisions and choices about this political issue or that political issue or that strategy or that strategy. and it is often the horns of a dilemma. >> why did british supporters helped douglass by his freedom and not the american

abolitionists? >> two reasons. he spent 1845 until 1847, about 18 or 19 months in the british isles when he is still in his 20s . a huge turning point in his life. he gets treated like a hero. most of the time. ireland, scotland and britain. ... but his british friends begin to realize, abolitionist friend to try to coax him to stay in england, move his family to england, adopting -- he actually thought about it but he couldn't. his cause was here, his family was here in the idea that he was going to move four small

children to england made no sense. so the richardson sisters from newcastle led the effort to raise money and do all the negotiation and letter writing and bought his freedom for $730. douglas would not return to the united states without the official document in his hand that he was free. the other part of the answer is the garrisonians, not garrison himself, who were very strict morals and they said to purchase the slaves freedom was you don't pay slaveholders. douglas's answer was thank you, i will check my freedom. better than not having them. >> one last thing before we end. douglas is telling his story

and so many ways, douglas's story is america's story. what should we take from this? in this current moment we find ourselves in? what could this story teach us. >> you didn't tell me you were going to ask me that. history is never over. it has terrible surprises. if you think you won of victory, please watch out. he springfed in his life over and over, one of those rare reformers, radical reformers who lives to see his cause triumph in the middle of his life and his 40s and beyond belief. 1858-59, abolitionist tabular reason to think they would live to see slavery destroyed.

and a new constitution crafted, not going to happen. and he lives 30 more years to see the victory, the causes, constitutional amendments, civil rights acts, all but wiped out or even raced, by the supreme court, by terrorist violence, by a politics that could not and would not preserve it. the trajectory of his life covers most of the 19th century, it covers the greatest transformative events. and it covers that great story from slavery to freedom which in so many ways we are still living. we are still every day fighting over how to define the 14th

amendment what equality before law means. we are still fighting over the supreme court. hoops. [laughter] >> host: on that note, thank you for joining us. [applause] >> host: before you leave i want to remind you we have books for sale. david blight will be signing books. a warm thank you for moderating the wonderful discussion. there is so much left to cover. i also want to make sure i make an important correction to my intro. i just learned before david patterson was here, the 55th governor of new york, march 822010 and new york state's first african american governor. we are thrilled to have him

with us in the audience. and to have all of you as well so thank you for joining us. [inaudible conversations] >> you are watching the tv on c-span2, television for serious readers. here's tonight's lineup.

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