Civil Rights Attorney Donates a Piece of African American History to University

CHICAGO, May 18, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Celebrated matrimonial attorney and historian Jeffery M. Leving will be donating an original 1855 first edition of My Bondage and My Freedom by Frederick Douglass to Chicago State University Foundation at Chicago's Union League Club on May 19.  Frederick Douglass' great great grandson Gordon Bell will be in attendance for the book donation.

Receiving this rare book is Mr. Cordell Reed, Chairman of the Chicago State University Foundation Board of Directors and Dr. William A. Martin, Associate Director of Nontraditional Degree Programs and Lecturer at Chicago State University.  Dr. Martin is also the author of the book Speak Power, Speak Wealth, and Speak Freedom – Paradigm Processing Tearing Down the Walls.  

Leving is a noted collector of various documents and historical artifacts from African American history, in addition to being a contributor to ourblackheritage.com, which is dedicated to celebrating, preserving and exhibiting African-American history and culture. According to Leving, "Frederick Douglass paved the way for a different understanding of the way Americans viewed slavery and slaves alike."

Frederick Douglass was an American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman. After escaping from slavery, he became a leader of the abolitionist movement, gaining note for his dazzling oratory and incisive antislavery writing. He stood as a living counter-example to slaveholders' arguments that slaves did not have the intellectual capacity to function as independent American citizens. Many Northerners also found it hard to believe that such a great orator had been a slave.

"We are excited to welcome such an important piece of both African American and National history to our educational environment. We would like to thank Mr. Leving for allowing our students to have a different perspective on slavery rooted in a strong historical document," said Dr. William Martin of Chicago State University.

Leving hopes that donating this book will help educate students to better understand what slavery was really like.  "Education is the key to understanding. I am excited to share a piece of history with a university that deserves to house it, learn from it, and educate generations to come," continued Leving.

The official donation will take place Thursday May 19th at 7:30am at Chicago's Union League Club. For more information please contact Chris Foltz at 312-772-4865 or [email protected].

SOURCE Christopher Foltz & Company

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