Bill E. Lawson is Professor of Philosophy at Michigan State University. His area of research is African-American Social and Political Philosophy and the theory of social contract. He has published numerous articles as well as two books, The Underclass Question, an anthology of writings by African-American philosophers on the issue of the "urban underclass", and Between Slavery and Freedom (with Howard McGary), an examination of ethical issues in the American slavery experience. Frank M. Kirkland is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Hunter College and at the Graduate Centre, both of the City University of New York. He has published a variety of scholarly articles on Kant, Hegel, and Husserl, as well as on the urban underclass and the relation of modernity to African American life. He has also edited a collection of essays entitled Phenomenology, East and West. He is currently completing a scholarly monograph, Hegel and Husserl: Idealist Meditations.

"Frederick Douglass and his writings shine as beacons of freedom and hope. Bill Lawson and Frank Kirkland have put us in their debt for commissioning - from the best minds practicing philosophy in the African-American traditions - powerful essays on the philosophical significance of Douglass's work. The book will invigorate Douglass scholarship and philosophy, and fan the embers of our love of freedom and hope." Emmanuel Eze, Bucknell University

• Acknowledgments. List of Contributors.Preface.Introduction.Part I: Racial Assimilation And Emigration:.1. Douglass against the Emigrationists: Bernard R. Boxill.2. Douglass on Racial Assimilation and Racial Institutions: Howard McGary.3. Douglass's Assimilationism: John P. Pittman.Part II: Natural Law And American's Founding Documents:.4. Natural Law in the Constitutional Thought of Frederick Douglass: David E. Schrader.5. Whose Fourth of July? Frederick Douglass and 'Original Intent': Charles W. Mills.Part III: Enlightenment And Enslavement:.6. The Claims of Frederick Douglass Philosophically Considered: Roderick M. Stewart.7. The Grammar of Civilization: Douglass and Crummell on Doing Things with Words: Stephen L. Thompson.Part IV: Moral Suasion And Rebellion:.8. Douglass as an Existentialist: Lewis R. Gordon.9. Honor of Insurrection or A short Story about why John Brown (with David Walker's Spirit) was Right and Frederick Douglass (with Benjamin Banneker's Spirit) was Wrong: Leonard Harris.10. Enslavement, Moral Suasion, and Struggles for Recognition: Frederick Douglass's Answer to the question - 'What is Enlightenment?': Frank M. Kirkland.Part V: Incarcerating And Lynching Black Bodies:.11. Douglass on the Myth of the Black Rapist: Tommy L. Lott.12. From the Prison of Slavery to the Slavery of Prisons: Frederick Douglass and the Convict Release System: Angela Y. Davis.Part VI: Douglass (1818-95): One Hundred Years Later:.13. Frederick Douglass and Racial Progress: Does Race Matter at the Bottom of the Well?: Bill E. Lawson.Selected Bibliography.Index.