Joey Barretta Published in American Political Thought The visiting assistant professor of politics authored a paper titled “Frederick Douglass's Five-Decade Fight Against Colonization.”

By Abby Harlan
December 5, 2025

Joey Barretta, visiting assistant professor of politics at Washington and Lee University, recently authored an article published in American Political Thought, a journal of the University of Chicago Press.

The article, titled  “Frederick Douglass’s Five-Decade Fight Against Colonization,” recognizes and assesses an aspect of Frederick Douglass’ political project that has been insufficiently treated within the scholarly field: his persistent opposition to the colonization of African Americans. The piece establishes Douglass’s resistance as crucial to his overall dedication to racial integration and to realizing the principles of the Declaration of Independence, even though he believed the American founders’ views on colonization ran contrary to those principles.

Barretta’s focus on Douglass’s political thought originated in his early collegiate-level years, where the topic served as a focal point for his undergraduate thesis. He subsequently wrote his dissertation on Douglass’s political project after the abolition of slavery. Barretta’s article began as a revised chapter of his dissertation and underwent several rounds of changes after public presentations, editor feedback and the peer review process.

“The goal of my article,” Barretta says, “is to give students and scholars a definitive resource that explains the content of Douglass’s arguments against colonization and situates these arguments within his broader political project centered on racial equality.

Baretta is in his first year as a member of the W&L faculty. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in history and political science from Ashland University, as well as a Master of Arts and a Ph.D. in politics from Hillsdale College.