'My Voice, My Pen, My Vote’: Frederick Douglass’s Legacies in Our Own Time.

College of Arts and Humanities Monday, February 5, 2018 2:30 pm - 3:30 pm Adele H. Stamp Student Union, Atrium

The University of Maryland will welcome distinguished professor of American history, David W. Blight, to campus on Monday, February 5, 2018. In celebration of the 200th anniversary of the birth of Civil Rights Activist Frederick Douglass, Blight will deliver a public talk entitled, “’My Voice, My Pen, My Vote’: Frederick Douglass’s Legacies in Our Own Time.” Frederick Douglass was born into slavery on Maryland’s Eastern Shore in February of 1818. After escaping to freedom as a young man, he became one of the nation’s leading voices in the crusade to abolish slavery. A self-educated man, Douglass was an eloquent writer and impassioned orator who cultivated the respect and admiration of the American public. Throughout his life, he was a tireless advocate for human rights and equality for all people, whatever their race or gender. Douglass’s dramatic rise from slave to statesman served as an inspirational example of the innate potential in all people regardless of their origins. This February marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of Frederick Douglass. David Blight is the Class of 1954 Professor of American History at Yale University, where he serves as Director of the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition. The center hosts conferences, working groups, lectures, and many public outreach programs on the history of slavery and its abolition, as well as awarding the annual Frederick Douglass Book Prize. As a scholar of American slavery and abolition, Blight is the author of numerous award-winning books including Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory (2001), A Slave No More: Two Men Who Escaped to Freedom, Including their Narratives of Emancipation (2007), American Oracle: The Civil War in the Civil Rights Era (2011), and a new annotated edition of Frederick Douglass’s second autobiography, My Bondage, My Freedom (2013). He has recently completed a new, full biography of Frederick Douglass that will be published later this year. Blight works in the world of public history, including on boards of museums and historical societies, and as a member of a small team of advisors to the 9/11 Memorial and Museum team of curators. He has been a consultant to many documentary films, including, “Death and the Civil War,” (2012), the 1998 PBS series, "Africans in America," and "The Reconstruction Era" (2004) among others. Blight’s lecture, “’My Voice, My Pen, My Vote’: Frederick Douglass’s Legacies in Our Own Time,” will explore the many ways that the life and work of Douglass still remains vital in modern American society. The talk will take place at 2:30 P.M. In the Atrium of the Adele H. Stamp Student Union on the campus of the University of Maryland, College Park. The event is free and open to the public. No tickets or reservations are required. This event is part of Douglass 200, a year-long initiative by the University of Maryland, led by Professor of History Ira Berlin, to commemorate the bicentennial of the birth of Frederick Douglass. For more information, visit the UMD Department of History <a href="http://history.umd.edu/events/historian-david-blight-lecture-frederick-douglass-bicentennial">online</a>.

Add to Calendar 02/05/18 2:30 PM 02/05/18 3:30 PM America/New_York 'My Voice, My Pen, My Vote’: Frederick Douglass’s Legacies in Our Own Time. The University of Maryland will welcome distinguished professor of American history, David W. Blight, to campus on Monday, February 5, 2018. In celebration of the 200th anniversary of the birth of Civil Rights Activist Frederick Douglass, Blight will deliver a public talk entitled, “’My Voice, My Pen, My Vote’: Frederick Douglass’s Legacies in Our Own Time.” Frederick Douglass was born into slavery on Maryland’s Eastern Shore in February of 1818. After escaping to freedom as a young man, he became one of the nation’s leading voices in the crusade to abolish slavery. A self-educated man, Douglass was an eloquent writer and impassioned orator who cultivated the respect and admiration of the American public. Throughout his life, he was a tireless advocate for human rights and equality for all people, whatever their race or gender. Douglass’s dramatic rise from slave to statesman served as an inspirational example of the innate potential in all people regardless of their origins. This February marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of Frederick Douglass. David Blight is the Class of 1954 Professor of American History at Yale University, where he serves as Director of the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition. The center hosts conferences, working groups, lectures, and many public outreach programs on the history of slavery and its abolition, as well as awarding the annual Frederick Douglass Book Prize. As a scholar of American slavery and abolition, Blight is the author of numerous award-winning books including Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory (2001), A Slave No More: Two Men Who Escaped to Freedom, Including their Narratives of Emancipation (2007), American Oracle: The Civil War in the Civil Rights Era (2011), and a new annotated edition of Frederick Douglass’s second autobiography, My Bondage, My Freedom (2013). He has recently completed a new, full biography of Frederick Douglass that will be published later this year. Blight works in the world of public history, including on boards of museums and historical societies, and as a member of a small team of advisors to the 9/11 Memorial and Museum team of curators. He has been a consultant to many documentary films, including, “Death and the Civil War,” (2012), the 1998 PBS series, "Africans in America," and "The Reconstruction Era" (2004) among others. Blight’s lecture, “’My Voice, My Pen, My Vote’: Frederick Douglass’s Legacies in Our Own Time,” will explore the many ways that the life and work of Douglass still remains vital in modern American society. The talk will take place at 2:30 P.M. In the Atrium of the Adele H. Stamp Student Union on the campus of the University of Maryland, College Park. The event is free and open to the public. No tickets or reservations are required. This event is part of Douglass 200, a year-long initiative by the University of Maryland, led by Professor of History Ira Berlin, to commemorate the bicentennial of the birth of Frederick Douglass. For more information, visit the UMD Department of History <a href="http://history.umd.edu/events/historian-david-blight-lecture-frederick-douglass-bicentennial">online</a>. Adele H. Stamp Student Union