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James Farmer Jr.: The Great Debater provides a rhetorical and biographical guide to how the American Civil Rights Movement came into being. It details James Farmer Jr.'s intellectual emergence as a young debater at an HBCU in Marshall, Texas and ultimately chronicles how this led to the emergence of the first non-violent sit-in against segregation in 1942 in Chicago. Farmer was a key founder of the Congress of Racial Equality [CORE] that pioneered the non-violent strategies that would later be used by Martin Luther King. He debated important figures like Malcolm X to provide a powerful advocacy grounded in the praxis of argumentation. Ben Voth demonstrates the ongoing relevance of Farmer's successful debate methodology in resolving contemporary race problems in the 21st century such as Black Lives Matter.

In 1845, seven years after fleeing bondage in Maryland, Frederick Douglass was in his late twenties and already a celebrated lecturer across the northern United States. The recent publication of his groundbreaking Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave had incited threats to his life, however, and to place himself out of harm's way he embarked on a lecture tour of the British Isles, a journey that would span seventeen months and change him as a man and a leader in the struggle for equality.In the first major narrative account of a transformational episode in the life of this extraordinary American, Tom Chaffin chronicles Douglass's 1845-47 lecture tour of Ireland, Scotland, and England. It was, however, the Emerald Isle, above all, that affected Douglass--from its wild landscape ('I have travelled almost from the hill of ‘Howth'to the Giant's Causeway') to the plight of its people, with which he found parallels to that of African Americans. Writing in the San Francisco Chronicle, critic David Kipen has called Chaffin a'thorough and uncommonly graceful historian.'Possessed of an epic, transatlantic scope, Chaffin's new book makes Douglass's historic journey vivid for the modern reader and reveals how the former slave's growing awareness of intersections between Irish, American, and African history shaped the rest of his life.The experience accelerated Douglass's transformation from a teller of his own life story into a commentator on contemporary issues--a transition discouraged during his early lecturing days by white colleagues at the American Anti-Slavery Society. ('Give us the facts,'he had been instructed,'we will take care of the philosophy.') As the tour progressed, newspaper coverage of his passage through Ireland and Great Britain enhanced his stature dramatically. When he finally returned to America he had the platform of an international celebrity.Drawn from hundreds of letters, diaries, and other primary-source documents--many heretofore unpublished--this far-reaching tale includes vivid portraits of personages who shaped Douglass and his world, including the Irish nationalists Daniel O'Connell and John Mitchel, British prime minister Robert Peel, abolitionist John Brown, and Abraham Lincoln.Giant's Causeway--which includes an account of Douglass's final, bittersweet, visit to Ireland in 1887--shows how experiences under foreign skies helped him hone habits of independence, discretion, compromise, self-reliance, and political dexterity. Along the way, it chronicles Douglass's transformation from activist foot soldier to moral visionary.

The story of the upstate New York home where the orator and former slave lived with family, houseguests, and fugitives on the Underground Railroad. Despite living through one of our nation's most bitter and terrifying times, Frederick Douglass and his wife, Anna, raised five children in a loving home with flower, fruit, and vegetable gardens in Rochester, New York for twenty-five years beginning in 1848. While Frederick traveled widely, fighting for the freedom and rights of his brethren, Anna cared for their home, family, and extended circle. Their house was open to fugitives on the Underground Railroad, visiting abolitionists, and houseguests who stayed for weeks, months, and years at a time. In this book, local history expert Rose O'Keefe weaves together the story of the Douglasses'experience in Rochester and the indelible mark they left on the Flower City. Includes illustrations

“Reconstruct[s] Douglass's life in the nation's capital, both at home and in the halls of power, in ways that no other biographer has done” (Leigh Fought, author of Women in the World of Frederick Douglass). The remarkable journey of Frederick Douglass from fugitive slave to famed orator and author is well recorded. Yet little has been written about Douglass's final years in Washington, DC. Journalist John Muller explores how Douglass spent the last eighteen years of his life professionally and personally in his home, Cedar Hill, in Anacostia. The ever-active Douglass was involved in local politics, from aiding in the early formation of Howard University to editing a groundbreaking newspaper to serving as marshal of the District. During this time, his wife of forty-four years, Anna Murray, passed away, and eighteen months later, he married Helen Pitts, a white woman. Unapologetic for his controversial marriage, Douglass continued his unabashed advocacy for the rights of African Americans and women and his belief in American exceptionalism. Through meticulous research, Muller has created a fresh and intimate portrait of Frederick Douglass of Anacostia. Includes photos! “Muller's book connects Douglass to the city and neighborhood the way no other project has yet been able to... you're able to re-imagine the man and re-consider the possibilities of the place he once lived.” —Martin Austermuhle, DCist

Following Say It Plain, a collection of speeches that provides “a sweeping perspective on evolving issues of black identity in the struggle for equality” (Booklist). In “full-throated public oratory, the kind that can stir the soul”, Say It Plain collected and transcribed speeches by some of the twentieth century's leading African American cultural, literary, and political figures. Many of the speeches were never before available in printed form (Minneapolis Star-Tribune). Following the success of that groundbreaking volume, the Say It Loud! book adds new depth to the history of the modern struggle for racial equality and civil rights—focusing directly on the pivotal questions black America grappled with during the past four decades of resistance. With recordings unearthed from libraries and sound archives, and made widely available here for the first time, Say It Loud! includes powerful speeches by Malcolm X, Angela Davis, Martin Luther King Jr., James H. Cone, Toni Morrison, Colin Powell, and many others. Bringing the rich immediacy of the spoken word to a vital historical and intellectual tradition, Say It Loud! illuminates the diversity of ideas and arguments pulsing through the black freedom movement.