Fredrick Douglass Full Bio: "What To The Slave Is The 4th Of July?"

Today for the Fourth of July, we learn about the life of Frederick Douglass, the abolitionist born into slavery who famously asked, "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?"

We present our Full Bio conversation with Yale historian David Blight, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning biography, Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom.

• Frederick Douglass, Part 1: Douglass’s early life as an enslaved person and how he learned to read
• Frederick Douglass, Part 2: How Douglass escaped slavery and fled to the North
• Frederick Douglass, Part 3: How Douglass's views on slavery evolved in the 1830’s and 1840’s
• Frederick Douglass, Part 4: Douglass’s first wife, Anna, their five children (four of whom lived to adulthood), and his long and turbulent friendship with German feminist and abolitionist Otillie Assing
• Frederick Douglass, Part 5: His allegiance to the Republican Party, including his working relationship with Abraham Lincoln, and why Andrew Johnson was so dismissive of Douglass
• Frederick Douglass, Part 6: The reaction to Frederick Douglass’s death in February of 1895 as well as why Douglass’s second marriage to a woman named Helen Pitts became one of the biggest scandals in 19th century America