EVENT: Seminar discussion on the relationship between Frederick Douglass's views on U.S. foreign policy and his governmental work in the 19th-century Americas

Millery Polyné, postdoctoral fellow at the Frederick Douglass Institute for African and African-American Studies at the University of Rochester, will discuss Frederick Douglass's views on U.S. foreign policy in the Americas on Wednesday, Nov. 9, on the University's River Campus.

His seminar, titled "An (Un) Profitable Servant: Haiti, 'Santo Domingo,' and Frederick Douglass as Pan-Americanist," will be held from 12:30 to 2 p.m. in room 314 of Morey Hall, and is free and open to the public. The presentation is part of the Work in Progress Seminar sponsored by the Frederick Douglass Institute.

Polyné is at work on a book, Black Pan-Americanism: Afro-Modern Engagements between African Americans and Haitians, 1869-1964, while at the University. He is on leave as assistant professor of history at the City University of New York at Staten Island.

Polyné will discuss Douglass's views on U.S. foreign policy in the Americas as seen through his governmental assignments as Assistant Secretary to Ulysses S. Grant's Commission to annex the Dominican Republic and as U.S. Minister to Haiti.

A poet, documentary filmmaker, and Haitian-American historian, Polyné earned his bachelor's degree from Morehouse College and his doctorate from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. He is the author of a book of poetry, Release: Race Love Jazz, and the director of the forthcoming documentary series, "blacks cropped*crop blacks," about the relationship between African descendants and cash crops in the Americas.

For more information, contact the Frederick Douglass Institute at (585) 275-7235.