Contents

About the Author

Title Page

Copyright

What Is an African American Classic? by HENRY LOUIS GATES, JR.

Introduction by JOHN STAUFFER and HENRY LOUIS GATES, JR.

Suggestions for Further Reading

A Note on the Text

THE PORTABLE FREDERICK DOUGLASS

AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL WRITINGS

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave (1845)

Preface

From My Bondage and My Freedom (1855)

“Liberty Attained”

“Introduced to the Abolitionists”

“Twenty-one Months in Great Britain”

From Life and Times of Frederick Douglass (1881)

“Escape from Slavery”

“‘Time Makes All Things Even’”

FICTION

The Heroic Slave (1853)

SPEECHES

“What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?” (1852)

“The Claims of the Negro Ethnologically Considered” (1854)

“The Dred Scott Decision” (1857)

“The Significance of Emancipation in the West Indies” (1857)

“The Trials and Triumphs of Self-Made Men” (1860)

“The Day of Jubilee Comes” (1862)

“The Proclamation and a Negro Army” (1863)

“The Mission of the War” (1864)

“Pictures and Progress” (1864–65)

“Our Martyred President” (1865)

“The Freedmen’s Monument to Abraham Lincoln” (1876)

“Lessons of the Hour” (1894)

JOURNALISM

“To My Old Master” (1848)

“Prejudice against Color” (1850)

“F.D.” (1851)

“The Word ‘White’” (1854)

“Is It Right and Wise to Kill a Kidnapper?” (1854)

“Our Plan for Making Kansas a Free State” (1854)

“The Doom of the Black Power” (1855)

“Capt. John Brown Not Insane” (1859)

“To the Rochester Democrat and American” (1859)

“The Chicago Nominations” (1860)

“The Inaugural Address” (1861)

“A Trip to Haiti” (1861)

“The Fall of Sumter” (1861)

“Frémont and His Proclamation” (1861)

“The President and His Speeches” (1862)

“Men of Color, to Arms!” (1863)

“Valedictory” (1863)

“Woman Suffrage Movement” (1870)

“Letter from the Editor” (On the Burning Down of His Rochester House) (1872)

“Give Us the Freedom Intended for Us” (1872)

“The Color Line” (1881)

“The Future of the Colored Race” (1886)

“Introduction to The Reason Why the Colored American Is Not in the World’s Columbian Exposition” (1892)

“Toussaint L’Ouverture” (ca. 1891)

 

Appendix: On Genealogical Self-Fashioning

Notes