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Informationen zum Autor Peter Burchard (1921–2004) was the author of over twenty fiction and nonfiction books for young readers and adults, including One Gallant Rush: Robert Gould Shaw and His Brave Black Regiment, a major historical source for the motion picture Glory, which won three Academy Awards. Two of his books were listed by the American Library Association as notable books. The New York Times praised him highly, saying that “he uses historical fact with skill” and describing him as having “a splendid facility for characterization.” He lived in Williamstown, Massachusetts. Klappentext Here in a swift and compelling narrative, Peter Burchard tells the story of the greatest black American of the nineteenth century, a pioneer who laid down a firm foundation for all men and women who came after him.As a child and as a youth, Frederick Douglass was a slave, but his intelligence, his resilient character, and his innate charm, together with a measure of good fortune, made it possible for him to rise above a state of servitude. He became a forceful speaker and persuasive writer and conducted a campaign to abolish slavery and secure civil rights for his people and for all Americans. He saw himself as a soldier in a battle for the dignity of the "great family of man."This new biography presents Douglass as he lived through the misery, tragedy, and heartbreak of his early years, as he escaped from slavery only to endure anxiety and outrage in the free states of the North. He eventually made his way to Great Britain, where he lectured forcefully against slavery.In the United States, as the Civil War began, Douglass recruited young black men to fight and die for their freedom and the freedom of their brothers held in bondage in the South. He became a friend and counselor to presidents, senators, and governors.Here is a full-length portrait of this strong and passionate American.Nantucket On Tuesday, August 10, 1841, Frederick Douglass, three years a fugitive from slavery, paced the top deck of the ferry that was taking him from New Bedford to the island of Nantucket. At twenty-three, he stood above the six-foot mark and, having labored in shipyards in Maryland and Massachusetts, was both broad and muscular. His skin was golden brown. His wide forehead and prominent cheekbones framed dark and penetrating eyes, a broad nose, and a generous mouth. His hands were tough and leathery. With Douglass on the little steamer was a large and sometimes boisterous crowd of passengers, most of them white, some of them black. All but a few were abolitionists -- men and women speaking out against the cruelties of slavery in the South and prejudice and racial violence in the North. Most were firm believers in nonviolence. Earlier that morning, in a strong but peaceful demonstration in New Bedford, Massachusetts, the white majority had gained for their black friends the right to travel with them on the upper deck and in the cabin of the steamer. Douglass was physically imposing, yet, because he was a runaway, there was something tentative in his manner. He nurtured a vain hope that in such a gathering, he might be inconspicuous. He spoke only when spoken to and, standing on the fringes of the crowd, listened to debates on slavery and abolition, one of which was between a slaveholder from New Orleans and a Massachusetts minister. Douglass left the crowd, leaned on the rail, and watched several low-lying coastal islands rise up, then disappear in the translucent summer mist. He stared down at the steamer's wake as it fanned out, thinned, and dissolved in the dark waters of Nantucket Sound. As he had in his childhood on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, he paid close attention to the white sails passing -- canvas giving life and purpose to the tall ships and the fleets of fishing boats. Nantucket first appears as a thin violet haze, floating just above the far hor...
