In 1847 Frederick Douglass was getting ready to leave England where he had lived to avoid being recaptured after his escape from enslavement in Maryland. He had crisscrossed Britain for the last 19 months, lecturing on the evils of slavery in his native country. Now that supporters had raised 150 English pounds (about $750 then) to buy his legal freedom, he was able to return to his family in the United States. Yet, his safe passage was by no means guaranteed.<\/p>\n
To commemorate Douglass\u2019s departure from Britain, his close companion and fellow abolitionist, the Englishwoman Julia Griffiths, wrote the \u201cFarewell Song of Frederick Douglass.\u201d Only two copies of the sheet music are known to exist\u2014and one of them was acquired earlier this year by the University of Rochester\u2019s Department of Rare Books, Special Collections, and Preservation<\/a>. In early December, the song will be performed as part of this year\u2019s celebrations to mark the bicentennial of the birth of the renowned publisher, orator, freedom fighter, and statesman.<\/p>\n David Blight, the Class of 1954 Professor of American History at Yale University and the author of\u00a0Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom <\/em><\/a>(Simon & Schuster, 2018)\u00a0will deliver the keynote lecture as part of the event.<\/p>\n In 1847 when Douglass first arrived in Rochester, he found a bustling city of 50,000. It was here that same year that he launched his abolitionist newspaper the North Star<\/a>.\u00a0\u201c<\/i>The paper was to be a proud black enterprise,\u201d writes Blight in his new biography.<\/p>\n It was also in Rochester that Douglass gave his most famous speech, \u201cWhat to the Slave is the 4th of July,\u201d at\u00a0the majestic Corinthian Hall in 1852. \u201cWhat Douglass crafted and delivered… was nothing less than the rhetorical masterpiece of American abolitionism,\u201d writes Blight.<\/p>\n Over the last few decades, the University has assembled one of the world\u2019s leading archival collections of rare Douglass materials, including letters, published speeches, Underground Railroad passes that had been used to smuggle slaves to safety, and other ephemera that document and expand upon Douglass\u2019s history and activity. The collection is part of a larger repository of materials documenting the history of abolition and woman suffrage movements.<\/p>\n