audiobook Visions for Black Men by Naim Akbar; Na'im Akbar in History

Description

Henry Louis Gates; Jr. presents the only authoritative edition of all three autobiographies by the escaped slave who became a great American leader.Born a slave; Frederick Douglass educated himself; escaped; and made himself one of the greatest leaders in American history. Here in this Library of America volume are collected his three autobiographical narratives; now recognized as classics of both American history and American literature. Writing with the eloquence and fierce intelligence that made him a brilliantly effective spokesman for the abolition of slavery and equal rights; Douglass shapes an inspiring vision of self-realization in the face of monumental odds.Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass; an American Slave (1845); published seven years after his escape; was written in part as a response to skeptics who refused to believe that so articulate an orator could ever have been a slave. A powerfully compressed account of the cruelty and oppression of the Maryland plantation culture into which Douglass was born; it brought him to the forefront of the anti-slavery movement and drew thousands; black and white; to the cause.In My Bondage and My Freedom (1855); written after he had established himself as a newspaper editor; Douglass expands the account of his slave years. With astonishing psychological penetration; he probes the painful ambiguities and subtly corrosive effects of black-white relations under slavery; then goes on to recount his determined resistance to segregation in the North. The book also incorporates extracts from Douglass’s renowned speeches; including the searing “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?”Life and Times of Frederick Douglass; first published in 1881; records Douglass’s efforts to keep alive the struggle for racial equality in the years following the Civil War. Now a socially and politically prominent figure; he looks back; with a mixture of pride and bitterness; on the triumphs and humiliations of a unique public career. John Brown; Abraham Lincoln; William Lloyd Garrison; and Harriet Beecher Stowe all feature prominently in this chronicle of a crucial epoch in American history. The revised edition of 1893; presented here; includes an account of his controversial diplomatic mission to Haiti.This volume contains a detailed chronology of Douglass’s life; notes providing further background on the events and people mentioned; and an account of the textual history of each of the autobiographies.