Synopses & Reviews
One of the greatest African American leaders and one of the most brilliant minds of his time, Frederick Douglass spoke and wrote with unsurpassed eloquence on almost all the major issues confronting the American people during his lifefrom the abolition of slavery to womens rights, from the Civil War to lynching, from American patriotism to black nationalism. Between 1950 and 1975, Philip S. Foner collected the most important of Douglasss hundreds of speeches, letters, articles, and editorials into an impressive five-volume set, now long out of print. Abridged and condensed into one volume, and supplemented with several important texts that Foner did not include, this compendium presents the most significant, insightful, and elegant short works of Douglasss massive oeuvre.
Review
“[This collection] puts all America under deep obligation. . . . The figure of a great man rises from [this volume].” —W. E. B. Du Bois, author, The Souls of Black Folk
Review
“An outstanding contribution to the social history of the Negro in the United States.” —E. Franklin Frazier, author, Black Bourgeoisie
Review
“[An] evident outcome of great labor and love, [this book] is a monumental piece of historical scholarship, contributing as much to vital aspects of American history as to the documentary portraiture of the nineteenth centurys greatest American Negro.” —Alain Locke, editor of
The New NegroReview
“A veritable treasure house of historical information.” —Benjamin Quarles, author of The Negro in the American Revolution and Frederick Douglass
About the Author
Philip S. Foner wrote and edited more than 100 books, including The Black Panthers Speak, The History of Black Americans, and the 10-volume The History of the Labor Movement in the United States. Yuval Taylor edited I Was Born a Slave: An Anthology of Classic Slave Narratives; as editor of Lawrence Hill Books, he directs the Library of Black America series. He lives in Chicago.