Leigh Fought's "Women in the World of Frederick Douglass," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: Women in the World of Frederick Douglass by Leigh Fought.

The entry begins:

Women in the World of Frederick Douglass follows the life of nineteenth century black civil rights activist through the eyes of the women who made him. These are only a few, and don’t include Douglass’s mother, Harriet Bailey; his slave mistress, Lucretia Auld; his sisters; abolitionists Abby Kelly, Isabel Jennings, Maria Weston Chapman, Ellen and Anna Richardson, and Amy Post; German-language journalist Ottilie Assing; and civil rights activist Ida B. Wells, all of whom played significant roles in his life and the book.

Betsey Bailey, Douglass’s grandmother: Angela Bassett. In other roles, Bassett has consistently captured the elements of strength, grit, wit, calculation, and compassion necessary for a woman like Betsey Bailey, who navigated her large family through the fateful turns of life under capricious master.

Sophia Auld, Douglass’s mistress: Jennifer Lawrence. Sophia Auld first treated little Frederick with dignity and taught him to read, but at the threat of her husband turned against him and became cold. I imagine the earlier scenes much like...[read on]

Learn more about Women in the World of Frederick Douglass at the Oxford University Press website.

My Book, The Movie: Women in the World of Frederick Douglass.

--Marshal Zeringue