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\;Douglass wrote more than one autobiography and became a well regarded and often photographed orator . His insightful\, searing and rhetorically powerful words speak across th e centuries.
\nIn July 2020\, Douglass&rsquo\;s descendants read his speech &ldquo\;What to the Slave is the Fourth of July\,&rdquo\; each wor d resonating with the protests in the streets and the chants of &ldquo\;Bl ack Lives Matter.&rdquo\;
\nAmerica\, at the start of the third deca de of the 21st century\, is still in need of Douglass&rsquo\;s words. Howe ver\, his actions fighting slavery eventually moved from words and speeche s to embracing militant actions\, recognizing that words can fall on deaf ears and that people find int easier to listen than to act. In these tryin g times\, America is facing the dueling pandemics of racism and Covid 2019 . \; What will it take for us to act and create the country Douglass d reamed of?
\nPresented by: Professor Piper Kendrix Williams who is t he co-author of "The Toni Morrison Book Club." The University of Wisconsin Press\, 2020. She also co-edited "Representing Segregation: Toward an Aes thetics of Living Jim Crow." SUNY Press\, 2010. She is the Chair of and as sociate professor in the Department of African American Studies and jointl y-appointed in the Department of English at The College of New Jersey.
\nShe is currently working on "Black Roots\, Black Voices and Emancipat ory Practices in African American Literature and Culture"\, book-length st udy\, which explores the through-line that connects slavery to mass incarc eration\, and the attending forms of segregation and police violence. This project posits that in the African American literary tradition black writ ers imagine the future\, alternative times\, and different realities to pr oclaim their freedom and autonomy in a country that has failed to do so fo r over 400 years.
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