Frederick Douglass: “Men of Color, To Arms!”

( 1863 ) Commentary by Kristen K. Epps, University of Kansas

Glossary

Charles Sumner a U.S. senator from Massachusetts and a leader of the abolition movement
Denmark Vesey the leader of a planned slave revolt in South Carolina in 1822
John Brown the white abolitionist who led an unsuccessful raid on the U.S. arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia, in 1859.
Nathaniel Turner commonly called Nat Turner, the leader of a slave revolt in Virginia in 1831
patriotic governor Governor John A. Andrew of Massachusetts, who backed the recruitment of black troops
Sumter Fort Sumter in South Carolina, the site of the first hostilities of the Civil War

Frederick Douglass (Library of Congress)

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