About the Author

In 2018, John Hanrahan (better known as Jack) and his wife Lisa took a lengthy car trip to the South. They visited big cities and small towns where civil rights history was made decades ago.

The trip changed them.

Jack spent the next three years researching and writing about the movement that Pulitzer Prize winning historian Taylor Branch labelled “the essence of patriotism.” In writing his historical guide to our Civil Rights history, Jack often encountered mentions of and the words of Frederick Douglass.

Douglass’s life, courage, and contributions to the country impressed Jack. Believing that, like himself, Americans did not know enough about the exceptional Douglass, he committed to learn more and help Americans know Douglass better. So far, that has led to two books on Douglass … one focused on Maryland and the other on Massachusetts.

Much more to come on the Douglass front.

Jack’s undergraduate degree is from Boston College. He earned two master’s degrees and a Ph. D. from Indiana University.

Grandfather of seven, father of three, husband of one.