Frederick Douglass, a prominent African American who had escaped from bondage and become an outspoken abolitionist, delivered his speech “Men of Color, To Arms!” before a crowd in his hometown of Rochester, New York, in 1863. Douglass had been called on by a prominent Boston abolitionist named George Luther Stearns to help recruit Black soldiers for the all-Black Fifty-fourth Massachusetts Infantry. Although the state of Massachusetts paid for the raising of the troops, the men who enlisted came from all over the United States. The Fifty-fourth Massachusetts would go on to serve in some of the most ferocious fighting in the war, notably at the siege of Fort Wagner in South Carolina (an event commemorated in the 1989 film Glory). Although Douglass’s speech was originally delivered orally, it was later reproduced as a broadside, or printed poster, and was widely distributed as a recruiting tool.