Gilder Lehrman Book Breaks features the most exciting history scholars in America discussing their books with host William Roka live, followed by a Q&A with home audiences.

Join GLI online on Sunday, November 22 from 12:00 to 1:00 p.m. ET (9: 00 to 10:00 a.m. PT) with David Blight, as he discusses his book "Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom."

Born in Maryland in 1818, Douglass lived his first twenty years as a slave. Douglass escaped from his slaveholders in Maryland in 1838, using the papers of a free Black man to board a train headed north. He made his way to New Bedford, Massachusetts, with his new wife, Anna Murray, a free Black woman he had met in Maryland. It was in New Bedford that Douglass first became involved in the abolitionist movement. With William Lloyd Garrison as his mentor, Douglass began speaking widely, traveling across the country and then internationally, using his personal story of enslavement to condemn slavery and racial injustice. From the 1840s to the end of his life in 1895 at the age of 77, Douglass attained international fame as an unparalleled abolitionist, feminist, educator, editor, diplomat, and orator. He was the most photographed American of the nineteenth century, and it is likely that more Americans heard Douglass speak than any other public figure of his time. He lived to see Black emancipation, to work actively for women’s rights long before they were achieved, to realize the civil rights triumphs and tragedies of Reconstruction.

For more information: https://www.gilderlehrman.org/programs-and-events/book-breaks