Description

Many activists in the 19th-century fight against slavery were themselves currently or formerly enslaved Americans. Andy Hammann, Stanford lecturer in American history, will take us through several aspects of their prolonged fight: African Americans who self-emancipated via the Underground Railroad; clandestine (“maroon”) communities in the South; narratives of enslavement such as Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girlby Harriet Jacobs; antislavery newspapers such as Frederick Douglass’s The North Star; organizations like the American Anti-Slavery Society; and much more.

What you will learn

• The history of enslaved African Americans’ fight for emancipation by studying primary sources
• The connections between the historical battle against slavery and the current Black Lives Matter movement
• To understand what it was like to fight against slavery in a society that repeatedly affirmed and defended its legality

Questions?

Contact us at continuingstudies@stanford.edu.