#Non-fiction Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom

• Author: D. W. Blight
• Title: Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom (1818-1895)
  
• Published: 2018
• Trivia: Pulitzer Prize for History 2019
• Wikipedia: Frederick Douglass
• List of Challenges 2019
• Monthly reading plan
• #20BooksOfSummer
• Audio Book 36 hrs 57 min

Conclusion:

Ch 1-16 Exposition…

1. Childhood, slave work, escape
2. from Maryland  to the North, New York.
3. Douglass was a renowned orator.
4. He spent years on speaking tours
5. in US and Europe against slavery.

Ch 17- 21  the book begins to sparkle…

1. Douglass asks the question
2. we are still asking…more than 150 years later:
3. Why deprive the right to vote for black Americans?
4. …what is the world afraid of?

Douglass meets Lincoln in the White House.

1. Lincoln – the emancipator
2. …the elegant restraint of a statesman
3. …spoke with an eye on legality and public opinion
4. Douglass – the national evangelist
5. …with the fiery tones of a prophet.

Ch 22 – 31 Reconstruction….

1. Douglass made no distinction between
2. Andrew Johnson’s white supremacy and slavery itself…
3. ….as long as Johnson controlled
4. reconstruction the war was not over.
5. Douglass speaking about President Andrew Johnson is an
6. “…unmitigated calamity and a
7. disgrace the country must stagger under.”
8. Frederick Douglass was a
9. frightening black man with brains
10. …President Andrew Johnson’s basic nightmare!

Last thoughts:

1. This is the best way to learn history…read biography.
2. We read that progress has been made
3. …but still America is polarized on the color line.
   
4. The routine suppression of black voters
5. is far-reaching and  has devastating consequences.
6. We cannot be silent about it.

Best quote….and worth thinking about

1. There is NO negro problem.
2. The problem is whether the American people have
3. honesty enough, loyalty enough, patriotism enough
4. to  live up to their Constitution.