National Gallery Of Art | Audio

Celeste-Marie Bernier, professor of black studies and personal chair in English literature, School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures, University of Edinburgh, and co-editor-in-chief, Journal of American Studies, Cambridge University Press. On the bicentenary of Frederick Douglass's birth, we commemorate the many sides of the man: the abolitionist, statesman, autobiographer, orator, reformer, essayist, politician, and, not least of all, father. In this lecture held on February 25, 2018, at the National Gallery of Art, Celeste-Marie Bernier traces the activism, artistry, and authorship of Douglass alongside the sufferings and struggles for survival of his daughters and sons: Rosetta, Lewis Henry, Frederick Jr., Charles Remond, and Annie Douglass. As activists, educators, campaigners, civil rights protesters, newspaper editors, orators, essayists, and historians in their own right, his children each played a vital role in the freedom struggles of their father. They were no less afraid to sacrifice everythin