Everyone should have a voice

3/10/202622 min

The story of Frederick Douglass’s fight for universal suffrage from the Civil War to the rise of Jim Crow.

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Clips

First 90 seconds

Speaker 00:00
This message comes from Bombas. You need better socks and slippers and underwear because you should love what you wear every day. One purchased equals one donated. Go to bombas.com/npr and use code NPR for 20% off.
Rund Abdelfatah· Host0:17
[upbeat music] This is America in Pursuit, a limited-run series from Throughline and NPR. I'm Rund Abdelfatah. Each week, we bring you stories about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness in the US that began 250 years ago. And of course, at the heart of these stories are the people that made history happen, people who had a bold vision for the America they wanted to see, despite the obstacles.
Frederick Douglass· Soundbite0:48
The whole history of the progress of human liberty shows that all concessions yet made to her claims have been born of earnest struggle. If there is no struggle, there is no progress.
Rund Abdelfatah· Host1:02
Frederick Douglass is one of the greatest minds in American history. Born into slavery in the early 1800s, Douglass lived through the Civil War, emancipation, Black men getting the right to vote, and the beginning of the terrors and humiliations of Jim Crow. And through all of that, he kept coming back to one thing, a sacred right he believed was at the heart of American democracy: