[Frederick Douglass Broadsheet]

Historic broadsheet advertising a speech by Frederick Douglass.

This rare and ephemeral broadside was printed in April of 1868 by William S. Sharp of Salem, New Jersey to advertise an upcoming address by ‘The Great American Colored Orator’, Frederick Douglass. The lecture was to begin at 8 p.m. on the evening of April 9th at Rumsey’s Hall in Salem, with an admission price of 35 cents.

Though unfortunately the contents of the speech have been lost, contemporary topics likely included Reconstruction politics, women’s suffrage, and the numerous problems suffered by the freedmen. Douglass was among the most influential Civil Rights activists of the era, and indeed of all time.

After escaping from slavery in Maryland (encouraged by his love for a freedwoman, Anna Murray), Douglass changed his name and became a licensed preacher in the abolitionist hotspot of New Bedford, Massachusetts. He gave eloquent speeches about his life as a slave, and his skilled oratory against the abominable institution quickly gained him strong support and a wide public audience. His first autobiography (2 more would follow), Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, was published in 1845 and became an immediate bestseller.

Douglass was heralded as a living counterpoint to the racist claims that African-Americans were intellectually inferior. His fight for emancipation and suffrage (including women’s) escalated during the Civil War, when he recruited troops for the all-Black Massachusetts 54th Infantry Regiment in which his sons, Lewis and Charles, both served. In the years immediately following the war, Douglass advocated strongly for the 14th Amendment, which was passed just a few months after the broadsheet was printed.

Sources: Freedom Center; Library of Congress;