so many things in the book still resonate today. this is the gumshoe reporting technique that he used and many of the atrocities he witnessed in the civil rights movement. some of those resonate today so the book is very relevant to today's america. >> anne rosen, a co-author along with her late father of her father, deep south dispatch, memoir of a civil rights journalist. thank you. >> keep an eye out for the national press club's book fair to air in the near future. you can watch them and any of our programs in their entirety at book tv.org. type the author's name in the search bar at the top of the pa page. >> [inaudible conversations]

>> good evening, everyone, welcome to the new york historical society. i'm alex castle, manager of programs here, a joy to welcome to you the robert smith auditorium. tonight, frederick douglass, a lecture for fall 2018. it was founded in the honor of the late mike gladstein, a man of great passions specifically for biography. i'd like to thank edith glassstein and her entire family for their support of this lecture series and ongoing support, two a year. keep an eye out this spring for the next michael gladstein biography. and recognize alan shook and the council members with us for

their great work support. i learned that we have former assistant governor david paterson here with us tonight and we'd like to recognize and thank him. [applause] >> so, welcome. and tonight's program will last an hour and it will include a question and answer session. the q & a will be conducted via written questions on note cards. as you're coming into the auditorium, you may have received a note card or pencil, if not, we are going to have staff going through throughout the program and we will either give you a card or also be by later on to collect them as well and also there will be a formal book signing in the smith gallery and the books will be for sale there and we hope you join us for that. at last, we're thrilled to welcome david w blight back. as well as being an esteem trustee, he's a professor of

history and director of the gildman learning center. author or editor of a dozen books winning many prizes among many others. the recent book prophet of freedom. and the moderator is the chair of the center for african-american studies and william s todd, professor of religion and african-american studies at princeton university. dr. glaude is the director of many books. before we begin as always, we ask that you please silence electronic devices and cell phones and now, please join me in welcoming our guests. [applaus

[applause] >> how are you all doing? >> fine. good, good. welcome. . >> thank you, eddie for doing this. >> no, no, this is my pleasure. it's a blessing. so, let's jump into this. is that okay? it is a wonderful book, so buy it. [laughter] >> so david, talk a little bit about the archive, that informs this magestirial text. >> i had no intention of writing a full life of douglass. i had done an early book on douglass, a dissertation, i had edited his two autobiographies,

et cetera. i had douglass out of my life except for giving talks on his narrative to teachers. and i went to savannah, georgia about ten years ago to give a talk to teachers on douglass narrative and apologies to those who might have heard this story, they said there's a local collector who wants to meet you and have lunch. that collector was walter evans who is now a dear, dear friend and to whom this book is in part dedicated. he took me over to his house and got out on his very he is -- estimab estimable dining room table, his collection. i give him as many moments as i

can. he's a retired surgeon, came north for education, went to the michigan medical school. practiced in detroit for 30-some years, which gave us a lot in common because i grew up in flint, michigan. although he had season tickets to the tigers and i could never afford them. [laughter] >> at any rate, walter started collecting in the 1970's, 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. but his house is just chockful of archive boxes. now, this stuff should be at the library at yale and we have tried to get him to sell it. >> why yale? >>. [laughter] >> and, walter, if you're

watching, they're still waiting. but what it consisted of, in essence, are about ten very large family scrap books kept by douglass son during the last third of their father's life, also, a lot of family papers a, letters, photographs and a lot of other tidbits, that walter bought over time. mostly from one other collector and when i saw that collection, it was one of those moments a historian rarely has such luck, where i realized, oh, god, i don't want to do this. i don't want to do this. 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 eliots would. a lot of other douglass scholars have now gone there and most i've introduced to walter, but if you want to work

with his collection you spend time at his dining room table, i spent several spring breaks there and a lot the weeks and without this collection i wouldn't have done this and particularly this collection opens up the life of the older douglass which we talked a lot about. the aging douglass, the patriarch douglass and that's not the douglass people know, they know him from the autobiography. it's extraordinary and in many forms and now a lot of it digitized though not all of it, i also had access to missing issues at frederick douglass' newspaper which the yale library, i won't tell you how they got them, well, they bought them in some cases. there's always been missing issues at frederick douglass'

newspaper and they're gold mines of information and i've got access to i believe every issue. >> so the focus 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's a story that in some ways reveals a powerful and flawed human being. and all too human douglass in some ways to echo here. >> right. >> so let's think about this in terms of three categories. >> okay. >> douglass as prophet. >> i like that one. douglass as writer. >> a good one, too. >> and douglass as politician. talk a little about this prophet of freedom. >> i first have to say eddie

has really read this book. [laughter] >> and it's a little scary. we were sitting upstairs chatting away and had time on telephone, too, he's bringing up details i can't hardly remember. if you put the word prophet in your title you better be ready to defend it. it's a big, big word. and all through these years of working on douglass, you can't miss it in his rhetoric, that he's deeply steeped in the bible. that's not surprising in the 19th century, most intellectuals were. now, the 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 and in certain churches in baltimore.

but what douglass adopted isn't rocket science. he adopted the great story of the old testament, the idea that the temple of jerusalem-- this is what the great prophet jeremiah, isaiah, ezekiel and amos were saying, that the temples had to be destroyed, that the people had become so sinful, so poisoned they had to have a reckoning, and in that reckoning, many would die, some of them would be sent into exile. some of them would probably survive the exile. some of them might even find a promised land. douglass took that great story of exodus and all of its parts along the way, and he did what so many americans did, especially african-americans and eddie has written about this, some of the reasons i wanted him to interview me. he took the exodus story and he

applied it to his own people, into his own life, and especially to his country. now, it makes him at times, sometimes sort of blood thirsty orator. and makes him difficult to read, with a war -- and words that were not pleasant to say the least. did he what hebrew prophets did in the confounding language of the old testament. he was able to find language at times to express a dilemma, to explain a historical condition, to explain an irony, to explain something terrible out of which there might be possibility. it sent me in the course of working on this book, to some

theology friends, theologian friends, i should say, some of them may even be here. donald schriver, don, if you're here tonight, god bless you who told me, david, read walter brewingman and read so-and-so and so-and-so. and my good friend, richard rabinowitz says you've got to read robert allter and so-and-so, and so-and-so. i was trying to teach myself about the hebrew prophets, prophets that he douglass was used. and i read a book called "the prophets" among other books, that a prophet is sometimes that person in our society, in our lives, perhaps from the religious world, sometimes maybe more from a-- the political world. sometimes from both at the same time, who as heshle says

sometimes speaks in octaves that the rest of us can't hear, but we had recognition from it anyway. or as heschell also said, the prophet is often that 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 can't 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 the fourth of july speech. if that's not a prophetic work of rhetoric, i'm not sure any american ever wrote one. it's the rhetorical masterpiece of american abolitionism. it's a classic jeremiahid, the

classic story that calls the people back to the altar, back to their cause, back to their principles, back to their proper way, or face damnnation. the fourth of july speech is like a symphonsymphony. the forward is horrible and the final movement barely lets you back up. so there are many places in douglass life in the oratory and in his writing when you can begin to find these elements of the prophetic. was he always self-conscious of that? no, no. i don't know of any instance where he called himself a prophet. hello, i'm here today to be your prophet. a real prophet doesn't do that. >> no. >> heschell writes about that,

too, a real prophet never tells you he's a prophet, but he's going to hurt you while he teaches you and douglass did that over and over again. now, it doesn't mean that he's always right by any means, and doesn't mean that he's always prophetic by any means, especially the older douglass who struggles with call kinds of contradictions and conflicts in the last third of his life. >> when you think of the young douglass and his prophetic voice. there are these moments, i mean, part of the story that you tell is this ongoing act of self-creation that's douglass' life and we have a bust of the young douglass in african-american studies in princeton at stanhope hall and you can just see the fires in his eye. the fire in his eyes in the

sculptor. >> that's a good sculpture. >> absolutely, you can see it. he's intense. and that intensity has something to do with his rage against the particular institution, the moral stridism of garrisonism. in the midst of this, there's an insistence of douglass, he's chased in some ways. tell us about some of that. >> douglass sort of wrote himself into existence publicly. he's 20 years a slave in maryland, eastern shore maryland and in baltimore. escapes in 1838. he spends three years in new bedford, massachusetts working all kinds of menial jobs. >> and melville's territory. >> he and melville were there

in the same part of the year and lots of scholars try to have them meet, but a novelist must have them meet because we can't find that meeting. [laughter] >> and it's just not there. but it doesn't mean i didn't use moby dick for an epigraph on that chapter when melville calls the prow of the ship the pulpit. he begins to breach at the clutch 20, 21, 22 years old. just out of slavery. he's not perfectly formed by any means, any any means as an orator yet or as a thinker or anything yet. who is at 22? but he gets discovered by garrisonions, the proponents of william lloyd garrison's

approach to ending slavery, which is moral persuasion, and gir garrison was a-- and believed in immediately ending slavery now, not over generations. he was a religious -- gare ston was, he had some principles and strategies very difficult for a frederi frederick douglass abolitionists to follow such as strict politics non-politics. you did not get involved in political policies, they were consistent were with slavery. you had to get your hands dirty in politics. douglass will take time to leave that behind, but involved

in politics, you're going to find that out. he loved laid garrison. he was 12 years older. a father figure to some degree particularly for a man who was a genuine orphans. that's one of the first things you need to know about frederick douglass. he never knew who his father was, he was biracial, and garrisonions were at his abolitionist home, and said they were my church, they were my community and once they discovered him as a speaker and took him out to nantucket to do his first public speech in august of 1841 where he still was a trembling kid, he said i shook in my shoes as i got up to speak for the first time to white people.

... so for the next three and a half years they hired him. he went out on the road, i care sony and in mind and body as i i called them because that's away he came to feel about it. day in and day out, month income month out all across the north. at first just in new england ant all the way out to ohio, backbreaking tours. he would tour with groups usually a troop of abolitionist. in the first three to four years he traveled with abby kelley, stephen foster. they were married. and some others. garrison himself at times. this is where douglas cut his

teeth as a public abolitionist, as an oratory. and he toed the line of principles, politics, nonviolence, et cetera. at the end of this time, by 1845 he decided to sit down in the winter of 1844-45, and essentially write up all these choices been telling out on the circuit. what he did in his first speech as was two things. he told his tale. he told his story as a slave which is all there in the narrative, episode after episode, the fight, the learning, all the beatings and the terrible with things that he witnessed and experienced. but he also perfected his favorite speech at least at

first what was known as the slaveholders sermon. the slaveholders sermon was frederick douglass crowding out those passages of the bible where it said slaves, the obedient to your masters. he would get up and mimic a proslavery minister. he would go into the southern accent. the hypocrisy of christian slaveholders. he was a star at a picnic up to the point where wherever they would go as a speaking troop, the system was, it would have a resolution speak to, two or three resolutions you spoke to. douglass would start to speak to the resolution by the audience would start saying fred, do the sermon. and he would say all right and he would break into 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's this sense in which douglass cutting his teeth among the care sony and, in some ways drawing on the language of the king james bible, writers manual, that he carried with him, a sense in which he understood as aristotle the importance of rhetoric and its role -- >> he never read aristotle but he surely could have. >> but he seems to understand the way in which, the lesson about the moral role of rhetoric. >> right. there must be a moral position, must reach the hearts of the audience, not just a mind. >> the biography in so many ways

seems to be organized along the lines what each autobiography kind of constitutes anger. yet the early douglass, my bondage and freedom that would rate from douglass and the different life and times. it's various iterations. in each moment douglass is writing himself into existence. so there's a way in which douglass understood the power of language. you call it an iron fist in the text. he's doing it, running around the country, having some issues, beginning to break but he is fine-tuning his craft. so talk a little bit about douglass as this literary figure, as this fighter of sort sorts. >> there's a letter he writes to the editor of the first journal papers publish something in. i was in the fall of 1844, just

as you starting to write the narrative. he writes this first essay, very short, and he says in the letter to that editor, but to write for a book. it's like, i wonder if i could write a book? all of us who are 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 out just because he wanted to say this is who i am, this is my story, don't doubt me, i'm 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. remember, the list 20 years the slave and the lives another

seven years as a fugitive slave until it's british friends bought his freedom. but he is always in those years, the 1840s and 1850s, and i would i would sit into the civil war years, trying to perfect his writing style, his craft. the remarkable thing about douglass, lots of laws this man had including with the writing, he wrote in so many different genres. he wrote autobiography 1200 pages of autobiography. his life is punctuated with these three autobiographies. the first one in 1845, only 27 years old. the second one in ten years later when he is 37 in the middle of the 1850s. his long form masterpiece, my bondage and my freedom, 350 page autobiography which is a much more political book.

it's in the midst of the great crisis of the 1850s over slavery. he also lives a lot more from a different kind of abolitionist. the third, the old man something set, a life and times of frederick douglass. it's a text that is full of name dropping. he wants you to know all the famous people he knows, the president he advised and on and on and on. on the other hand, for us scholars it's a gold mine of just stop, stories, events, details. but we know that his relationship with john brown especially down to the eve of the attack of harpers ferry we know from the text. he revises the third one under the time in 1892. the autobiography is one form but he mastered the short form political editorial, the political essay for his newspaper. he could write in a different voice. he could go after a political issue with its in kansas,

nebraska, , the dred scott decision whatever it is and mail it in 400 words. he also wrote these elaborate speeches as text. the fourth of july speech is a masterpiece of writing, first, as a letter reset i worked for three weeks on this. he said i worked long on this that anything i've ever delivered. and you can tell. if i could advocated in the room and ask him, one of my hundred questions i would ask is what did you read before that speech? come on. where are your notes? and then he wrote one more work of fiction. he wrote a novella. some would say the autobiography is part fiction. i've been practicing that already but in 1852-53 wrote a novella based on the rebellion led by a slave named madison washington, a real event.

so we wrote it and he tried poetry. there is a fair amount of poetry douglass road. it's not his best form. he wrote poems poetry. he essay prose poetry writer. he had a magic with metaphors. my friend greatest during jim mcpherson once wrote a little essay called how abraham lincoln one the civil war with metaphors. some of you may remember that essay. i wouldn't say douglass won the civil war with metaphors but he certainly taught us a lot in the 19th century by his metaphors. had a way of capturing a moment for a dilemma sometimes in a metaphor that he would drop from the bible or shakespeare or just make it up. so he becomes a skilled writer who never is completely satisfied with his craft, which i think is --

>> this is a wonderful passage on page 259 that i just wrote yes with an exclamation point. this is, all great autobiographies is about loss, about the hopeless but necessary quest to retrieve and control a path that forever slips away. memory is both inspiration and burden, method and subject. the thing one cannot live with or without. so douglass is -- >> that's not bad. [laughing] >> the way he is constantly returning -- we talked about this earlier. i'm obsessed with james baldwin. jimmy is constantly retelling the story of his stepfather, constantly telling the story and is telling it in order to possess it. because intelligent it it's an

act of self creation. so he is rendering this narrative in order to some ways constitute itself. you have this moment when you said emerson, douglass is kind of the slave born embodiment of ambersons man the reformer. he is whitman's, you quote a passage where -- there's this moment where this gorgeous chapter on douglass in lincoln -- and lincoln we give an account where their back-and-forth and what emerges, these two figures become absolutely central to the founding, the second founding of the country. the course at the end, the older man still is trying to find the day he was born. as he's trying to write life and times, as he's reviving.

there's something going on. memory loss, trying to achieve something. i've got to say this, there's another line. just to let him know i read it. because there's something, remember we begin by saying powerful and flawed. you give us a sense of the interior life as much as archive will allow you. >> have been more than the archives. >> but there's this moment when you quote that was what he says in effect, the experience of slavery -- i'm paraphrasing this part -- indelibly affected his ability for helio affection. the way he even loved. >> i speculate on that, because, and others have. douglass is scarred by this life as a slave child, teenager, and

young adult. he experienced about every kind of brutality slavery could throw at you, especially the emotional brutality. he said that himself many times, protecting his mind he said was much harder than protecting his body. he was beaten savagely by at least one owner and one overseer. he witnessed all kinds of savage beatings at white house plantation. even witnessed colonel lloyd himself the owner of the whole place beat old barney, , i got o kept the carriage house, to a bloody pulp one day. douglass is like seven witnessing this stuff. and there are many elements, many moments where memory is so important in trying to understand douglass. but i found one of them and i

didn't think this ahead of time until i was writing those first chapters, what do we remember of our childhood? how do we remember childhood? how do we find prompts to remember childhood? he is re-creating that childhood over and over and over in his life, and he is telling us over and over how terribly important it was. both for all this brutality of slavery, but also for his humane sensibilities. he loved this white women who fit in biscuits out the window if he would sing for her. he loved her. he loved her when she was teaching me to read. he talks about how an angel could become a double. slavery could make an angel into a double. but the ways that a cultivate that childhood memory to understand what it did to him is remarkable and it got me off

reading a bunch of child psychology most of which i didn't use. if you go and read -- no offense to anyone but i tried to read a bunch of child psychology on how do we remember childhood? i thought i'll go back and read douglass. but then later in life he's about the memory, the men of the civil war, tries to reserve that abolitionist, emancipation, trying to remember victory, trying to remember, trying to make the catch remember that emancipation is the greatest result of this war and the greatest responsibility of the nation. but he's also trying to line up his own life. anyone in your was ever tried write anything in the genre of memoir knows that you are trying constantly to figure out welcome 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 douglass seems to have believed that one great story to tell, and that was his story, and he just kept doing it and kept doing it. at the same time wrote great speeches on political issues. he wrote great speeches of philosophical issues, on legal issues, but the tale of his life is always what you searching for and as 80 just suggested i think on three or four months before he died, he writes to benjamin who is one of thomases sons, thomas have been one of his owners and potential his father, though we don't know. he writes and says do you know when my birthday was? i can't find it. can you help me at all? also another way of asking is your father my father? he was at his death that at some

of you know. and thomas was dying. >> translator: did not for another nine months but it seemed like it was his deathbed. douglass wood back to the eastern shore about four times after the war come eventually with paparazzi in tow. where he went he had the press with them. he went to his deathbed and asked him are you my father. he didn't get a yes, which is one of the recent i don't think thomas auld was his father but he never stopped trying to figure out his paternity. because he knows he has white kinfolk. gets lots of white kinfolk. yet like kinfolk he didn't know, and it had them later in life. he not only had four surviving adult children idea 21 grandchildren and he had some siblings who either adopted ine 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 they are

all buried from the. cedar hill became a place of -- >> how many of the 21 grandchildren -- >> fourteen of the grandchildren died in infancy or by their teenage years. the death of children in the 19th century was not uncommon. this was -- they lost four or five in one month in the dip three epidemic, , over and over and over. >> let me -- >> he never writes about internet and his biographies of course. >> let me ask you about, we talked about douglass the profit, douglass the writer, douglass the politician, political pragmatist, the blood shirt, bloody shirt waving figure, the one who jealously guarded his position as the black leader, the old man who was famous, the perils of celebrity. talk about this douglass.

>> he didn't like the young rivals either. douglass love being king of the hill. those who try to knock him off, he did some ugly things back. anyway, douglass learns politics in the crucible of the 1850s to the decades that leads to the civil war, as a gear sony he was supposed to leave political parties alone. garrison himself was a very political man. the consular card speeches by henry clay and liberator and said don't vote. it's got to be a bit of a contradiction some of his followers. to say the least. but douglass by 1850, 51, one, 52, 53 into the early 1850s as a slavery crisis over its expansion is exploded across the country and the political parties are turned up so support, douglass comes to realize this is a hugely political question as well as aa moral question pretty also gets like a lot of garrisonian and

moral suasion as he became quite impatient with moral persuasion. you can keep trying to change aa person's heart forever and ever and ever, at some point you may just need to bend somebodies will and change the law, if you can. he loved the politics buddy only shouldered up to it carefully in the 1850s. at first he considered himself a free spoiler. he goes to the first frisson convention in 1848, called him up to speak. he didn't quite know what -- didn't quite know what to do in 1854 although he was kind of excited about, here's a political party and now it is anti-slavery. it is against the expansion of slavery and he begins to develop -- i spent with her chapters on this -- it begins to develop a kind of hard earned pragmatism about the crisis over slavery and he realizes you may have to

make relationships with people you do not like, whose principles you can't stand, but they can make things happen. he began to realize the republican party from 54 to 56, 58 and in 1860 when lincoln runs, is causing the south of grief. the enemy of my enemy is my friend. he also came slowly to trust some republicans like chase, sumner and a few others. he doesn't know lincoln yet. he knows lincoln my reputation. he followed stephen douglass a lot. they're quite an exchange at times and i was lucky to have a fellow at our center at yale who is studying that in terms of stephen douglass and frederick douglass had quite an exchange with each other. i had never known that.

anyway, he becomes a republican for sure in the civil war because the republican party was waging a war against slavery, least eventually was. as many people in the criminal because you know your lincoln, douglass was a ferocious critic of abraham lincoln the first year and half of the war because the union government was some of the against slavery. in fact, it was protecting fugitive slaves and sending them back to slavery, or trying to. with the preliminary emancipation proclamation, the final proclamation of january january 1863, douglass not only changed his tune, the appropriated lincoln as lincoln appropriated him. and he saw that what was now, the civil war had now become what lincoln had not wanted it to become. in lincoln's famous work she did not want me to become a remorseless revolutionary

struggle. but that exactly what it had become. the rest of douglass his life after 1864, it would campaign every year for the republican candidate for president. the republican party would decide which states to stand into. if it were pockets of free black voters in a state he would be sent there. there were other sections of the country they thought he would work well in, upper new england and in for some reason in dna. he was always sent to indiana. indiana was a swing state in 19th century, folks. [laughing] douglass would campaign week after week for hayes, garfield, blaine, et cetera. and sometimes he would wonder why. because the republican party was really changing. and abandoning his cause, because of emancipation, civil rights, black voting rights, the

13th, 14th and 15th amendments. but he never gave up on the republican party. and just to round out a bit, it's quite an issue today, like all great questions and history that matter. this has a huge legacy because today's, let's just call them libertarian, the republican right, the libertarian right, the cato institute, right? love to appropriate douglass because he was a staunch proponent of self-reliance of blacks raising themselves by their own institutions, their own hard work, their own threatens the one. that every black leader in the h century, to speak of, was a proponent of self-reliance. that is not unusual. sometimes the ways it's gets portrayed today in political discussion, the way douglass gets appropriated now, it tries me a bit crazy because to do that yet to ignore his entire

life as a radical abolitionist. it's good news because douglass has become like abraham lincoln. everyone wants to have him on their side. you wants to claim douglass, he's on our side. no, he's on our side. what would douglass do if this? i get asked this all the time, what would douglass think of black lives matter? what would douglass think of #me too movement. >> what would douglass think of donald trump's praise of an? >> well. i thought that might not come up tonight. [laughing] no -- [laughing] >> before go to questions you do something so wonderful and beautiful in the text. you are so active in to anna. say a word about anna. >> annamarie douglass, his first wife, , his wife of 44 years. he meets her in baltimore, public in pictures. don't know for sure. when he was 18 or 19 and she was three, she was born free out on

the eastern shore just on the other side of the river from where he was born. they probably played at the same bill when they were kids but they did know each other until baltimore. they fell in love in baltimore. he escape from slavery in late august 1838 and anna had the extraordinary bravery to pack her bag and wait for a letter of when frederick at new york city at, doubt on the lower west side and found himself safe within 48 hours, he writes a letter back to baltimore, we don't know who he wrote that letter to come but whoever he wanted to with immediately to anna and anna took the same three trains and sang three ferries and was in new york and the same 38 hours or so to join him.

and that was an extremely active bravery. she was free. she was born free. if they had been caught, well, we wouldn't have ever known about either one of them. she would make his helpmate for all of those decades, the mother of 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 the most famous black man in the world who is married to an illiterate woman. who could not be part of that professional intellectual life in meaningful ways. she was very much a part of his life and a lot of other ways. we know what we know about her, not entirely but largely from what the children wrote about her. one of the things that sin the

collection in savannah are two new little narratives written by two of the sons. we also have the one at the daughter wrote, rosetta, that there are two narratives can what entitled growing up in the douglass home, little narratives about their parents. it every stage i try to find my way into her life. you can't make -- there are no documents that anna wrote. you know, no letters, but there are lots of little testimonies about her. she kept the account books. she kept the bank book. she did numbers when he didn't. and she provided a home and never come if you get to know douglass at all, you will sense this.

he was desperate to make and preserve a home, he you can set never had one. that's what she represented to him. >> let's go to some of the questions from the audience. one of the first questions, i heard that frederick douglass was biased against native americans. is this true? >> somebody has read a copy of the page, bruce. [laughing] 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 uprightness and the ambitions of black people, that white people should stop worrying about black folk. let them vote. let them own land. let them get educated. they want to be americans. he would often trot out the image of the vanishing indian, and it sometimes do it and not

very pleasant language, like the indian just wants to wrap himself in a blanket and walk off into his hills, were as a black man wants to own a company and wants to get into the best school and so forth. it's not pretty. it's a 19th-century stereotype that was all over the culture, but i've had students read chapters of this in a seminar i taught and it is jarring when the reader. they want douglass to be in everywhere and forever for andn advocate of indian rights and to want him to be against the reservations. he thought the reservations were probably the proper thing. all too human. >> talk about the relationship between douglass and grant. >> oh, it's very important. never got very close which i think was to douglass chagrin grant becomes president in 1868.

douglass have been distant admirer of grants like all guarantees were. grant appoints him to a commission in 1870-71, the stint at the nay commission it was a commission -- santo domingo -- what is now the dominican republic, to discuss with the leadership of the dominican with the santo domingo, whether the u.s. with an exit. the grants administration was trying to annex santo domingo. douglass was actually the secretary for this commission. he wasn't an official member of the commission. he took one of his sons along with him and he kept a diary on this three-month trip into the caribbean. actually went swimming and almost drowned, according to his diary. but grant put him on the commission, and douglass advocated for the annexation.

douglass became an expansionist after the civil war. there are reasons for that. lots of abolitionists did. douglass, this is 1870-71, reconstruction has one, reconstruction has a fall apart yet. the client is raging february the reconstruction has a fall apart yet. frederick douglass was among a large group of former abolitionists who now argued the united states is now an abolitionist country. we are a nation of emancipation and we should export it. we should take the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments out to the world, especially still slave societies like in the caribbean, and give them our ideas. that's not unfamiliar to us. americans of all stripes have done this for a very long time. but when they come back from the santo domingo commission, grant invited the regular commissions to the white house for a special dinner and didn't invite douglass. not a pleasant thing.

but he always at least from a distance admired grant. in fact, in 1876 in 1876 he wat to run again. he would know how to trust the other candidates, despite the scandals. there were so many grant scandals. he thought grant would probably come well, he wanted republicans to win. he didn't think grant could lose, but they never had a truly close relationship, which has always made me tripoli fasting with a speech douglass gets in 1876, the second greatest speech at the unveiling of the lincoln monument in lincoln park in washington, freedman's memorial. ulysses grant is present with sitting right in the front row when douglass gave that speech, and grant pulled the rope that unveiled without. and i went to grants papers to

find a what did grant think. nothing there. grant must have gone back and had a nap at the widest. didn't say a word about that. he should have. >> so how did the rise of jim crow impact douglass? i really interesting question. >> the rise of jim crow and early 19th century rudy had impact on because douglass got thrown off lots of trains. he got jim crowed more times in his life that he get an account by hotels, by taverns, by restaurants, by trains, by stagecoaches picnic up to be a source of humor for him at times, and -- sorry. but later the time we often talk about with the rights of jim crow by the 1880s, 1890s, douglass lives to see. he lives into 1895. mississippi passes the first disenfranchisement law in 1890

douglass lives to see the beginnings of bitter segregation in the late '80s and into the '90s. '90s. he doesn't live to see its fruition into the early 20th century, idcs it. i nothing about it, as much as i could tell, surprised him. because he had experienced all of the antebellum, jim crow over and over. although he always referred to things like eating jim crowed, a form of segregation -- being -- legal or otherwise is in the variation of proslavery ideas picky which is call and the proslavery vision reconstructed. the proslavery tradition brought back to life. for him it was the resurrection of slavery. that's the way he knew how to understand. >> that wonderful phrase he uses, the manifestations of racism as our national face.

>> yes. he calls racism a national face. >> there you have it. >> it had been. >> that's also why the civil and emancipation was so important because he hoped, killed it or -- >> begun it, long, but -- >> then we see the backsliding, right? how influential is he in getting the women's suffrage passed in seneca falls? >> he was the only male speaker. the only black participant who signed the seneca falls declaration of rights. that he was there, but he gave his presence to this event was huge. and he was, from that time on an even before, always a women's rights of man. he wrote essays entitled i am it

women's rights man. he was always for women's rights. he is also patriarchal in many ways in his private life. that doesn't make him that unusual for some reformers and radicals and abolitionists. but he was all in on women's suffrage, on women's economic rights and women's civil rights until the 14th and 15th amendments, and he has a terrible breakup as some of you probably know with cady stanton and susan anthony, and susan anthony and elizabeth cady stanton by any measure misbehaved badly in the way they treated douglass with all kinds, especially stand, racist epithets. not just and douglass but aimed at black men. they were fed up. they did want to wait any longer. they wanted women in the 15th amendment but everybody with one open understood if women's

suffrage was not put pregnant h amendment it would never pass. but you stanton and anthony it was, put us in or you can have your country back. douglass didn't have that choice. it's one of those many moment 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's often the horns of a dilemma. >> why did british supporters help douglass by his freedom and not the american abolitionist? >> well, to reasons. he spent 1845-47 about 18, 19 months in british isles when you still in his 20s. huge turning point in his life. he gets treated like a hero most of the time in ireland, scotland and britain.

and to the state in ireland they practically made him a patron saint. he only lived four months there and there are two monuments to him. crazy. anyway, but his british friends again to realize come first, the rollout of british abolitionist friends who tried to convince him to stay in england. move his family over to england. adopt england. he actually thought about it. it's clear, there are some letters, but he couldn't. his family was here and i get is going to move anna and four small children to england made no sense. so the richardson sisters from newcastle led the effort to raise money and did all the negotiation and the letterwriting and bought his freedom for $730. and douglass would not return to the united states until he had

the official document in his hand, that he was free. the other part of the and is that the garrisonians, although not garrison himself to his credit, the garrisonians were very strict moralists and they said to purchase the slaves freedom was to be complicit to slavery. you don't pay slaveholders. douglass said thank you very much, i'll take my freedom. [laughing] you know, it's better than not having it. >> so one last thing. douglass is telling his story, and in so many ways douglass is story is america's story. what should we take from this end is current moment we find ourselves in, professor blight? what does this story teach us? >> you didn't tell me we were going to -- that history is

never over. that history doesn't only have cycles, it has terrible surprises, and would you think you have won a victory, watch out. he is one of those rare reformers, especially radical reformers, who lives to see his cause triumph in the middle of his life in his 40s, and, frankly, almost beyond his belief, as late as 1858 and 59, 59, and abolitionists had little reason to believe they were going to see slavery destroyed. and a new constitution crafted out of it. not going to happen. it happen. he also lets 30 more years to see that there is victory, those causes, this constitutional amendments, though civil rights asked all but wiped out or erased by the supreme court, by

terrorists violence, and by a politics that could not and would not reserve it. the trajectory of his life covers most of the 19th century. it covers the greatest transformative events in our history, the civil war. and it covers that great story of from slavery to freedom, which we still in so many ways are living. we are still every day fighting over how to define that 14th amendment and what equality before the law means. god knows we're still fighting over the supreme court. >> on that note, thank you all very much for joining us. [applause] so i do, before you leave i do

it remind you that we have the books for sale at in our smith gallery. david blight will be signing books out there. a very warm thank you to any cloud for moderate tonight's discussion. there so much left to cover. i also, before i just want make sure i make a really important direction from my intro because i had just learned before that david paterson is a part of what to make the question he was the 55th governor of new york from 2008-20 can also new york state first african-american governor sucking were so thrilled to have him with us in the audience. [applause] and always great at all of you as well, thank you all for joining us. [applause] [inaudible conversations] >> every year tv covers book fairs and festivals around the

country, more than 300 today. here's a look at some upcoming book fairs and festivals. >> [inaudible conversations] ♪