Frederick Douglass at 200
6:30 PM, FREE program, light reception to follow
Presented by: David Blight, Ph.D.

David Blight is currently writing a new, full biography of Frederick Douglass that will be published by Simon and Schuster in September 2018, titled Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom. This lecture will focus on the meaning of Douglass’s life and thought, as well as the importance of writing his biography, especially in light of the commemoration of his 200thbirthday.

Blight is a teacher, scholar and public historian. He is Class of 1954 Professor of American History at Yale University, and Director of the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition. Blight is one of the most respected scholars of the Civil War and Reconstruction, race relations, Douglass, Du Bois, and problems in public history and American historical memory.

Blight’s newest books include annotated editions, with introductory essay, of Frederick Douglass’s second autobiography, My Bondage and My Freedom (Yale University Press, 2013), Robert Penn Warren’s Who Speaks for the Negro, (Yale University Press, 2014), and the monograph, American Oracle: The Civil War in the Civil Rights Era (Harvard University Press, published August 2011), which received the 2012 Anisfield-Wolf Award for best book in non-fiction on racism and human diversity. His earlier books include Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory (Harvard University Press, 2001), which received eight book awards, including the Bancroft Prize, the Abraham Lincoln Prize, and the Frederick Douglass Prize. Blight earned his Ph.D. in History (1985) from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He completed his undergraduate degree at Michigan State University.