philosophies and feelings than he had in the Nar-
rative. It was also during this time that Douglass
continued his friendship with John Brown, who
would lead 18 followers in a doomed attack on the
arsenal at Harper’s Ferry in October 1959. As the
survivors of the raid were being executed, public
opinion called for an expanded prosecution in Vir-
ginia of Brown’s friends and supporters, including
Frederick Douglass. Douglass was able to escape
to Canada and then to Scotland, where he lectured
on the Harper’s Ferry Raid. While Congress inves-
tigated Brown’s supporters, none were implicated
by Brown, and the issue was pushed off the public
stage by the Lincoln-Douglas debates. Douglass
was able to return to America soon after.
During the Civil War Douglass became a strong
supporter of President Lincoln, particularly after
the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863. Douglass
was summoned to the White House by Lincoln
several times to address the condition of blacks
in the south, and he was the first black man to
attend an inauguration (Lincoln’s second) as an
invited guest.
After the Civil War, Douglass continued his
work for African Americans as they moved be-
yond the bonds of slavery and toward the hope of
full freedom and all the entitlements of citizen-
ship. Universally recognized as both a valuable
spokesman and leader for black Americans, Dou-
glass fought for the enactment of the Thirteenth,
Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments to the U.S.
Constitution. Douglass served as U.S. marshall
for the District of Columbia from 1877 to 1881,
and then as recorder of deeds for the District of
Columbia from 1881 to 1886. As perhaps the ul-
timate recognition of his importance on the na-
tional scene, Douglass served as the U.S. minister
to Haiti from 1889 to 1891. A voice for individual
achievement and universal freedom, and arguably
one of the finest American orators of the 19th cen-
tury, Frederick Douglass died in Washington, D.C.,
on February 20, 1895.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Blassingame, John W., ed. The Frederick Douglass Pa-
pers. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1979.
Douglass, Frederick. Narrative of the Life of Frederick
Douglass: An American Slave. Written by Himself.
New York: Signet, 1968.
Gates, Henry Louis, Jr., ed. The Classic Slave Narra-
tives. New York: New American Library, 1987.
McFeely, William S. Frederick Douglass. New York:
Norton, 1991.
Janet BlandDove, Rita Frances (1952– )
Acclaimed poet, novelist, performer, and play-
wright Rita Dove stands as a pillar in contemporary
literature. Not only was she the first African-Amer-
ican U.S. Poet Laureate and Consultant in Poetry at
the Library of Congress, but she also won a Pulitzer
Prize for her collection Thomas and Beulah.
Born in 1952 in Akron, Ohio, Dove is the
daughter of Elvira and Ray Dove, one of the first
African-American research chemists. Dove’s cre-
ative and scholarly pursuits began at an early age.
After visiting the White House as a Presidential
Scholar in high school, she attended Miami Uni-
versity as a National Merit Scholar, graduating
summa cum laude in 1973. Following this, Dove
received a Fulbright Fellowship and attended the
Universität Tübingen in West Germany for two
semesters. Recognizing her passion for creative
writing, Dove attended the University of Iowa
Writers’ Workshop, where she earned her master
of fine arts degree in 1977. While there, Dove met
and married the German writer Fred Viebahn
and, in 1983, their daughter Aviva Chantal Tamu
Dove-Viebahn was born. After teaching creative
writing at Arizona State University from 1981 to
1989, Dove became the Commonwealth Professor
of English at the University of Virginia in Char-
lottesville, where she now lives with her husband
and daughter.
Dove’s literary and academic successes are too
numerous to list. She has received more than 20
honorary literary doctorates from institutions
such as Miami University, Notre Dame, The Uni-
versity of Akron, Columbia University, and State
University of New York at Brockport. Besides her
aforementioned laurels, Dove has also received the146 Dove, Rita Frances