Douglass refused to cede the Constitution to the slaveholders. He insisted the Constitution did not sanction slavery, that natural law and the Constitution assured liberty, and political action would be necessary to destroy slavery and secure freedom
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Toward the end of his life, Frederick Douglass served briefly as U.S. ambassador to Haiti. The disastrous episode reveals much about the country’s long struggle for Black sovereignty while always under the threat of U.S. empire.
In an 1860 speech commemorating radical abolitionist John Brown's raid on Harper’s Ferry, Frederick Douglass argued that slavery would only end if the slave owner feared the violent retribution of the enslaved.
John Harris’s The Last Slave Ships offers a comprehensive portrait of the illegal slave trade in the Atlantic, starting with the last slave ships to dock in New York Harbor.
The great abolitionist and former slave Frederick Douglass died 125 years ago. Today, Jacobin publishes never-before-transcribed articles from Frederick Douglass’ Paper denouncing capitalism and economic inequality.
"Moments come and moment pass. But you cannot freeze them if you do not seize them," is the theme of Gene Bruskin's musical exploration of Reconstruction when this nation had the chance to do the right thing. Like then, the moment is still now.
This is the perfect time to read the entirety of Frederick Douglass’s famous speech (from 1852), and not merely because of the date on the calendar.(Dave Zirin)
New play, about Reconstruction. This was really a turning point in US history when America almost did the right thing. The South was writing new state constitutions and African Americans were getting elected to local and national offices.
Reviewer Claybourn says this new biography is likely to become the definitive one of the great 19th Century leader of the African American freedom struggle and champion of democracy.
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