CHURCH REVIEW

Vol. XXIII., No. 1.        JULY, 1906.               Whole No. 89


                             I
                     FREDERICK DOUGLASS.

                         PREFACE.
    Frederick Douglass lived so long, and played so  con-
spicuous a part on the world's stage, that it would be impossi-
ble, in a work of the size of this, to do more than touch upon
the salient features of his career, to suggest the respects in
which he influenced the course of events in his lifetime, and
to epitomize for the readers of another generation the judg-
ment of his contemporaries as to his genius and his charac-
ter.
    Douglass' fame as an orator has long been secure. His
position as the champion of an oppressed race, and at the same
time an example of its possibilities, was, in his own genera-
tion, as picturesque as it was unique; and his life may serve
for all time as an incentive to aspiring souls who would fight
the battles and win the love of mankind. The average Ameri-
can of to-day who sees, when his attention is called to it,
and deplores, if he be a thoughtful and just man, the deep
undertow of race prejudice that retards the progress of the
colored people of our own generation, cannot, except by read-
ing the painful records of the past, conceive of the mental
and spiritual darkness to which slavery, as the inexorable
condition of its existence, condemned its victims and, in a
less measure, their oppressors, or of the blank wall of pro-
scription and scorn which free people of color were shut
up in a moral and social Ghetto, the gates of which have vet
not been entirely torn down.
    From  this night of slavery Douglass  emerged, passed
     1                    1




			

African Methodist Episcopal Church Review, Vol. 23, Num. 1

Frederick Douglass and Chronology

W.

Volume:  23
Issue Number:  01
Page Number:  01
Date:  07/1906