John W. Blassingame, Class of 1971 (PhD) was a professor of History and African American Studies at Yale from 1970-1999.  Dr. Blassingame served as the Chair of the African American Studies department from 1971-1989.  Dr. Blassingame was a pioneer in the study of American slavery, collecting slave letters and interviews for Slave Testimony: Two Centuries of Letters, Speeches, Interviews, and Autobiographies (1977), which include a large selection of annotated and authenticated accounts of slaves speaking for themselves during the 18th and 19th centuries.  For over 20 years, Dr. Blassingame worked on editing the papers of Frederick Douglass and published six volumes of Douglass's papers and manuscripts.