Tag: slavery

This commentary will discuss the cultural and historical relationship between the literary text Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglas, An American Slave, Written by Himself[1] and the ‘Emancipation Memorial’[2] erected in 1876 in Washington, D.C; also known as the ‘Freedman’s Memorial’. The first version of the text, published in 1845, was written during the antebellum period in contrast to the monument that was erected towards the end of the Reconstruction, when the position of black Americans was supposed to have altered with the Emancipation Declaration in 1863. However, it can be argued that many of Douglas’s main preoccupations with the racial prejudices during the antebellum era can be seen embodied in the sculpture that was intended to commemorate ‘The Emancipator’, and the emancipation. Continue reading “The Language of Slavery and Freedom: Frederick Douglass vs ‘The Emancipation Memorial’” →