"For five decades, from the antebellum period through the Civil War and Reconstruction and into the Gilded Age, he used his voice and wielded his pen in the cause of emancipation, equal rights, and human dignity. Inspired by the Hebrew prophets, Douglass developed a unique oratorical and literary style that combined scriptural cadences with savage irony, moral urgency, and keen insight. Assembled by David W. Blight, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning biography Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom, this volume, a companion to Library of America's edition of Douglass's Autobiographies, gathers all of Douglass's most essential speechs and journalism, timeless works that are still speak powerfully to us today"--
