Bill In the News: CNSNews:
In schools all across America, Frederick Douglass is known as a former slave who became one of the nation’s leading abolitionists; he was also a champion of women’s rights. Not so well known was his bigotry: his anti-Catholicism was a trait he shared with most abolitionists, especially those who were Protestant ministers. Douglass was an ordained deacon and a preacher in a local African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church.
In his classic, “Catholicism and American Freedom,” University of Notre Dame historian John T. McGreevy notes that Douglass “displayed a casual anti-Catholicism, attacking the ‘cunning illusions’ of Catholic leaders.” Professor Richard Hardack offers plenty of evidence to support McGreevy’s observation; his work is available in an edited volume by Alan J. Rice and Martin Crawford, Liberating Sojourn: Frederick Douglass & Transatlantic Reform. READ MORE HERE
