Frederick Douglass: New Haven to Great Britain- free lecture the public is invited, New Haven Musu

Talk: Frederick Douglass: New Haven to Great Britain

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Wednesday, February 21

5:30pm – 7:00pm

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Description:In 1888, Frederick Douglass gave a public address at New Haven’s Hyperion Theatre in support of presidential candidate Benjamin Harrison. The “New Haven Daily Palladium” reported that the crowd clapped and cheered for two minutes straight after Douglass had finished speaking. But, according to British scholar Hannah-Rose Murray, a visiting fellow at the Gilder Lehrman Center at Yale University,Douglass’ reception in America had not always been so hospitable. Particularly in the years before the Civil War, he was viciously attacked both in person and in the press.

However, according to Murray, when Douglass visited Britain in 1845 he was met with almost universal admiration, much like the reception he received in New Haven. Murray will discuss Douglass and other African-American abolitionists who traveled to Britain during a free lecture at the New Haven Museum.

Murray will also highlight how the American and British press responded to Douglass’ sensational British lecturing tour. He gave over 300 lectures in the British Isles but was particularly fond of retelling one story that involved “a Connecticut Yankee.”Hartford citizens were shocked to learn that during his journey to Liverpool via steamship, Douglass was nearly thrown overboard by a pro-slavery mob, led by a slaveholder born in Connecticut.

Murray received a Ph. D. from the Department of American and Canadian Studies at the University of Nottingham and is a visiting Fellow at the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, andAbolition at Yale University.