The Columbian Orator

"Frederick Douglass validated his manhood by giving Edward Covey, his surrogate slave master, a good whipping. What inspired his fists was not only manly rage, but liberating knowledgeknowledge gained in part from his reading of The Columbian Orator. I read it now and the words still inspire and inflame." - Ossie Davis "The Columbian Orator was of profound importance to the shaping of the African American canon, through The Narrative of Frederick Douglass. David Blight has done historians and literary critics a profound service by so expertly editing this germinal text. A must read for scholars of American and African American studies." - Henry Louis Gates, Jr.,Harvard University "Thousands of young readers in 19th century America learned about eloquence and liberty from the stirring speeches, plays, and poems in The Columbian Orator. When one reads it todayeven better, reads it aloudits eloquence speaks to us all." - Sydney Nathans,Duke University

Professor of History and Black Studies at Amherst College, David W. Blight is the author of Fredrick Douglass' Civil War: Keeping Faith in Jubilee and editor of the Bedford Books editions of Narrative of the Life of Fredrick Douglass, An American Slave and W. E. B. DuBois's The Souls of Black Folk.