The Anna Murray and Frederick Douglass Family Freedom-Fighting Collective

Join us for Kenneth B. Morris Jr., the great-great-great-grandson of Anna Murray and Frederick Douglass, in-conversation with Celeste-Marie Bernier, the Douglass family historian.

Together they will discuss the lives of those in the Douglass Family Freedom-Fighting Collective:

• Anna Murray Douglass,

• Frederick Douglass,

• Rosetta Douglass Sprague,

• Lewis Henry Douglass,

• Frederick Douglass Jr.,

• Charles Remond Douglass,

• Annie Douglass.

The centuries-long Collective transformed history through revolutionary liberation. Over generations, members of the family laboured as Underground Railroad freedom-fighters, educators, authors and anti-slavery agitators. They were also business owners, government workers and labour union founders, as well as community organisers, historians and human rights philosophers.

Struggling, sacrificing, and surviving together, they lived their lives as a united power and by their rallying call to arms: “Why not we endure hardship that our race may be free?” (Anna Murray Douglass).

Kenneth B. Morris Jr. is the Co-Founder & President of Frederick Douglass Family Initiatives. Ken descends from two of the most influential names in United States history. He is the great-great-great-grandson of Frederick Douglass and the great-great-grandson of fellow revolutionary Booker T. Washington.

Celeste-Marie Bernier is Professor of United States and Atlantic Studies at the University of Edinburgh and historian-consultant-researcher-writer to Frederick Douglass Family Initiatives and the Frederick Douglass Honor Society. She is the author and editor of a forthcoming nine-book series, 'Douglass Family Lives: The Anna Murray and Frederick Douglass Family Biography and Collected Works'.

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Host or Publisher National Library of Scotland