Frederick Douglass (1818-1895)
v Frederick Douglass was a slave, a writer, a preacher, a social reformer, and a politician.
v He was a leader of the abolitionist movement in
to end slavery, and supported equal rights for all, including women, immigrants,
native Americans, and minorities. Specifically, he argued for the right to
vote, desegregation in schools, and the right for blacks to fight in the Civil
v As a brilliant speaker and writer he proved that black slaves had the intelligence to function as free citizens.
three autobiographies: Narrative of the
Life of F.D., My Bondage and My Freedom, and Life and Times of F.D. Frederick
v Douglass also published an abolitionist newspaper titled, The North Star.
v His greatest speech was titled, “What to the slave is the 4th of July?”
v He was even nominated Vice President (without his knowledge or consent) by the Equal Rights Party, a small political party, in 1872.
v There are several schools named after Frederick Douglass.
offers the Frederick Douglass Book Prize each year for the best
historical writing about slavery. Yale University
Born into slavery in
, Frederick Bailey never knew his
parents. It was rumored his father was his mother’s master, but he never really
knew. He was separated from his mother as an infant, and lived with his
grandmother until he was seven. His mom died when he was ten. From age seven to
worked on a plantation. He then became a house slave in Frederick . This is where Sophia Auld, his master,
taught him the alphabet. He soon began to teach himself to read secretly. Baltimore
By age sixteen, he was teaching other slaves to read the Bible, and held regular lessons for six months before other masters broke up a meeting, using stones and clubs.
was sent to a
“slave breaker” as punishment, working on a small farm. He was beaten and
whipped regularly until he successfully fought back. Frederick
In 1837, he fell in love with a free black woman living in
named Anna Murray, who helped him escape. She gave him a sailor’s uniform with
fake ID papers, and enough money to take a train to Baltimore and freedom. He later wrote, “I felt as one might feel upon escape from
a den of hungry lions.” Anna Murray soon joined him and after eleven days they
were married, using the name Mr. & Mrs. Johnson. They soon moved to New York , taking
the new name Douglass. They had five children. He joined a church and became a
In 1843 he joined the “Hundred Conventions” project, touring
preach against slavery, during which he was attacked and beaten. In 1845 he
traveled to America England and , partly
to dodge his former master, who wanted his “property” back. Douglass preached,
and was popular enough that people raised money to buy his freedom. Ireland
During the Civil War he served as a recruiter, and two of his children joined as soldiers. After President Lincoln was shot, Douglass spoke at his memorial in
after which widow Mary Lincoln gave Douglass her husband’s walking stick. Washington
In 1882 his wife died, and in 1884 he remarried, to Helen Pitts, a white feminist, who was twenty years younger. This angered both their families.
saying his first marriage had been to someone of his mother’s colour, and his
second to someone of his father’s. He and Helen moved to Frederick .
Their house is now a historical site. Washington DC
“I would unite with anybody to do right and with nobody to do wrong.”
“A man’s rights rest in three boxes. The ballot box, jury box and the cartridge box.”