One of the greatest African American leaders and one of the most
brilliant minds of his time, Frederick Douglass spoke and wrote with
unsurpassed eloquence on almost all the major issues confronting the
American people during his life-from the abolition of slavery to women's
rights, from the Civil War to lynching, from American patriotism to
black nationalism. Between 1950 and 1975, Philip S. Foner collected the
most important of Douglass's hundreds of speeches, letters, articles,
and editorials into an impressive five-volume set, now long out of
print. Abridged and condensed into one volume, and supplemented with
several important texts that Foner did not include, this compendium
presents the most significant, insightful, and elegant short works of
Douglass's massive oeuvre.