Description

Born on the Eastern Shore of Maryland Samuel Ringgold Ward 1817c 1869 escaped enslavement and would become a leading figure in the struggle for Black freedom citizenship and equality He was extolled by his contemporary Frederick Douglass for his depth of thought fluency of speech readiness of wit logical exactness Until now his story has been largely untold

Ward a newspaper editor Congregational minister and advocate for the temperance movement was considered one of the leading orators of his time After the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 he fled to Canada where he lectured widely to improve conditions for formerly enslaved people who had settled there Ward then went to Britain as an agent of the Canadian Antislavery Society and published his influential book Autobiography of a Fugitive Negro He never returned to the United States and he died in obscurity in Jamaica

Despite Wards prominent role in the abolitionist movement his story has been lost because of the decades he spent in exile In this book R J M Blackett brings light to Wards life and his important role in the struggle against slavery and discrimination and to the personal price he paid for confronting oppression