Douglass Dialogues

IN CONVERSATION 

Join us for an insightful conversation between Kenneth B. Morris, Jr., great-great-great-grandson of Frederick Douglass, and esteemed Douglass family historian and writer, Professor Celeste-Marie Bernier. Together, they will explore remarkable lives of Frederick Douglass, his wife Anna Murray Douglass and the wider Douglass family, renowned for their commitment to social justice activism, political radicalism and equal human rights.

This special Douglass Dialogues event is part of #DouglassWeek 2024, scheduled for 14th-20th April in various locations in Belfast city and beyond. #DouglassWeek is an annual event series that celebrates and advances the legacy of Frederick Douglass around the world. The week includes both in-person and online discussions, talks, performances, exhibitions and other events. #DouglassWeek is organised by The Globe Lane Initiative, nonprofit organisation dedicated to promoting history, cultural exchange and social justice. Globe Lane’s year-round Douglass Dialogues conversations are in-depth discussions with leaders, creatives, community activists and others inspiring change in the spirit of the Douglass family. To find out more, about #DouglassWeek 2024, click here.

Wednesday 17 April, 1 pm | £5.00 – £6.50

About Celeste-Marie Bernier

Celeste-Marie Bernier is Professor of United States and Atlantic Studies and Personal Chair in English Literature at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, advisor to Frederick Douglass Family Initiatives and Globe Lane Initiative/#DouglassWeek director. She is the author of over 20 monographs, essay collections, special issues, and scholarly editions and over 35 essays and book chapters and curator of over 6 US and UK travelling exhibitions. Her single-authored books include: African American Visual Arts, If I Survive, The Anna Murray and Frederick Douglass Family Papers and Douglass Family Lives. Winner of a British Association for American Studies Book Prize and co-winner of a European Association for American Studies Book Prize and International African American History and Genealogical Society Maryland Book Award, she has delivered over 250 guest lectures and plenaries and held visiting appointments and fellowships around the world. She is a past Co-Editor-in-Chief for the Journal of American Studies published by Cambridge University Press. She is currently working on a three-year international interdisciplinary research project funded by the UK Leverhulme Trust titled, Sacrifice is Survival: Black Families Fighting for Freedom in the USA and Canada (1732-1936).

About Kenneth B. Morris, Jr.

Kenneth B. Morris, Jr. is Co-Founder & President, Frederick Douglass Family Initiatives (FDFI), a Globe Lane Initiative #DouglassWeek director, and great-great-great-grandson of Frederick Douglass and great-great-grandson of Booker T. Washington. Morris has been a keynote speaker at the United Nations, received an Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from the University of La Verne, California, was the first man awarded the Women’s E-News 21 Leaders for the 21st Century Ida B. Wells Award for Bravery in Journalism, and was appointed to the United States Frederick Douglass Bicentennial Commission by Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, serving as Commission Chair. He has appeared in documentaries including Abraham Lincoln and The American Presidency, Frederick Douglass in Five Speeches, Becoming Frederick Douglass and 1000 Years of Slavery. He contributed the preface to Isaac Julien’s Lessons of the Hour, the afterword to Picturing Frederick Douglass: An Illustrated Biography of the Nineteenth Century’s Most Photographed American, and forewords to FDFI editions of the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave.