![]() ![]() In his “Men of Color to Arms! Now or Never!” broadside, Douglass called on formerly enslaved men to “rise up in the dignity of our manhood, and show by our own right arms that we are worthy to be freemen.”ĭouglass, who had risen to international fame after the 1845 publication of his first autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, saw the Civil War as the “golden moment” for African American men to join all races of men to “assert their claim to freedom and manly character.” By defending their country, Douglass believed, his brethren could “claim America as his country-and have that claim respected.” As uniformed soldiers, Black men could shed the image of the powerless enslaved person and assert the rights of male citizenship that came with patriotic service. During the Civil War, Frederick Douglass used his stature as the most prominent African American social reformer, orator, writer and abolitionist to recruit men of his race to volunteer for the Union army. ![]()
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