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Frederick Douglass

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Frederick Douglass
OccupationAbolitionist

Frederick Douglass (February 14, 1818 – February 20, 1895) was an American abolitionist, editor, orator, author, statesman and reformer. Called "The Sage of Anacostia" and "The Lion of Anacostia," Douglass was one of the most prominent figures of African American history during his time, and one of the most influential lecturers and authors in American history. His towering posture showed dignity and strength, and when he spoke, his baritone voice was powerful. These features together gave Douglass a strong presence. He was a firm believer in the equality of all people, whether black, female, American Indian, or recent immigrant. Douglass spent his life advocating the brotherhood of all humankind. One of his favorite quotations was: "I would unite with anybody to do right and with nobody to do wrong."

Life as a slave

Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey, who later became known as Frederick Douglass, was born a slave in Talbot County, Maryland, near Hillsboro. He was separated from his mother, Harriet Bailey, when he was still an infant. She died when Douglass was about 7. The identity of Douglass' father is obscure: Douglass originally stated that his father was a white man, perhaps his owner, Aaron Anthony; but he later said he knew nothing of his father's identity. When Anthony died, Douglass was given to Lucretia Auld, wife of Thomas Auld. Mrs. Auld sent Douglass to Baltimore to serve Thomas' brother, Hugh Auld.

Early life

When Douglass was about 12, Hugh Auld's wife, Sophia, broke the law by teaching him some letters of the alphabet. Thereafter, as detailed in his Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave (published in 1845), Douglass succeeded in learning to read from white children in the neighborhood in which he lived, and by observing the writings of the men with whom he worked. When Hugh Auld discovered this, he strongly disapproved, saying that if a slave learned to read, he would become dissatisfied with his condition and desire freedom; Douglass later referred to this as the first anti-abolitionist speech he had ever heard.

In 1833, Thomas Auld took Douglass back from his brother after a dispute ("as a means of punishing Hugh," Douglass wrote).

Dissatisfied with him, Thomas Auld then sent Douglass to work for Edward Covey, a poor farmer who had a reputation as a "slave-breaker," where Douglass was whipped regularly.

Sixteen-year-old Douglass was indeed nearly broken psychologically by his ordeal under Covey, but he finally rebelled against the beatings and fought back. Covey lost in a confrontation with Douglass and never tried to beat him again. This incident was kept under wraps, possibly because Covey was afraid the news of Douglass' victory would ruin his reputation as a "slave-breaker" or simply because he was ashamed of his defeat.

In 1837, Douglass met Anna Murray, a free African American, in Baltimore while he was still enslaved. They were married soon after he obtained his freedom.

From slavery to freedom

In 1836, Douglass first attempted to escape from his owner, Covey. He was unsuccessful.

Douglass successfully escaped slavery on September 3, 1838, boarding a train to Havre de Grace, Maryland, dressed in a sailor's uniform and carrying identification papers provided by a free black seaman. After crossing the Susquehanna River by ferry at Havre de Grace, Douglass continued by train to Wilmington, Delaware. From there Douglass went by steamboat to "Quaker City" — Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His escape to freedom eventually led him to New York, the entire journey taking less than 24 hours. Douglass "officially" won his freedom when British sympathizers paid the slaveholder who legally still owned him.

Abolitionist activities

Douglass joined various organizations in New Bedford, Massachusetts, including a black church, and regularly attended abolitionist meetings. He subscribed to William Lloyd Garrison's weekly journal, The Liberator, and in 1841, he heard Garrison speak at a meeting of the Bristol Anti-Slavery Society. Douglass was unexpectedly asked to speak at one of these meetings, where he told his story and was encouraged to become an anti-slavery lecturer. Douglass was inspired by Garrison, later stating that "no face and form ever impressed me with such sentiments (the hatred of slavery) as did those of William Lloyd Garrison." Garrison was likewise impressed with Douglass, and wrote of him in The Liberator. Several days later, Douglass delivered his first speech at the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society's annual convention in Nantucket. Twenty-three years old at the time, Douglass later said that his legs were shaking. He conquered his nervousness and gave an eloquent speech about his rough life as a slave.

In 1843, Douglass participated in the American Anti-Slavery Society's Hundred Conventions project, a six month tour of meeting halls throughout the Eastern and Midwestern United States. He participated in the Seneca Falls Convention, the birthplace of the American feminist movement, and was a signatory of its Declaration of Sentiments.

Autobiography

Douglass' best-known work is his first autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, which was published in 1845. At the time, some skeptics attacked the book as inauthentic, questioning whether a black man could have produced such an eloquent piece of literature. Nevertheless, the book received generally positive reviews and it became an immediate bestseller. Within three years of its publication, it had been reprinted nine times with 11,000 copies circulating in the United States; it was also translated into French and Dutch.

The book's success had an unfortunate side effect: Douglass' friends and mentors feared that the publicity would draw the attention of his ex-owner, Hugh Auld, who might try to get his "property" back. They encouraged him to tour Ireland, as many other former slaves had done. Douglass set sail on the Cambria for Liverpool on August 16, 1845, and arrived in Ireland as the Irish Potato Famine was beginning.

Douglass published three versions of his autobiography during his lifetime (and revised the third of these), each time expanding on the previous one. The 1845 Narrative, which was his biggest seller, was followed by My Bondage and My Freedom in 1855. In 1881, after the Civil War, Douglass brought out Life and Times of Frederick Douglass, which he revised in 1892.

Travels to Europe

File:Frederick Douglass mural, Belfast.jpg
Mural featuring Frederick Douglass in Belfast, Northern Ireland

Douglass spent two years in Great Britain and Ireland and gave several lectures, mainly in Protestant churches or chapels. Some were "crowded to suffocation," such was his draw; an example is his hugely popular London Reception Speech, which Douglass delivered at Alexander Fletcher's Finsbury Chapel in London in May 1846. Douglass remarked that there he was treated not "as a color, but as a man." He met and befriended the Irish nationalist Daniel O'Connell. When Douglass visited Scotland, members of the Free Church of Scotland, whom he had criticized for accepting money from American slave-owners, demonstrated against him with placards that read, "Send back the nigger."

Return to the United States

Douglass later became the publisher of a series of newspapers: The North Star, Frederick Douglass Weekly, Frederick Douglass' Paper, Douglass' Monthly and New National Era. The motto of The North Star was "Right is of no Sex — Truth is of no Color — God is the Father of us all, and we are all brethren."

Douglass' work spanned the years prior to and during the Civil War. He was acquainted with the radical abolitionist John Brown but disapproved of Brown's plan to start an armed slave rebellion in the South. Brown visited Douglass' home two months before he led the raid on the federal armory in Harpers Ferry. After the incident, Douglass fled for a time to Canada, fearing he might be arrested as a co-conspirator. Douglass believed that the attack on federal property would enrage the American public. Douglass would later share a stage in Harpers Ferry with Andrew Hunter, the prosecutor who successfully convicted Brown.

Douglass conferred with President Abraham Lincoln in 1863 on the treatment of black soldiers, and with President Andrew Johnson on the subject of black suffrage. His early collaborators were the white abolitionists William Lloyd Garrison and Wendell Phillips. In the early 1850s, however, Douglass split with the Garrisonians over the issue of the United States Constitution.

Civil War Years

Pre-Civil War

In 1851, Douglass merged the North Star with Gerrit Smith's Liberty Party Paper to form Frederick Douglass' Paper, which was published until 1860. Douglass came to agree with Smith and Lysander Spooner that the United States Constitution is an anti-slavery document, reversing his earlier belief that it was pro-slavery, a view he had shared with William Lloyd Garrison. Garrison had publicly demonstrated his opinion of the Constitution by burning copies of it. Douglass' change of position on the Constitution was one of the most notable incidents of a division that emerged in the abolitionist movement after the publication of Spooner's book The Unconstitutionality of Slavery in 1846. This shift in opinion, as well as some other political differences, created a rift between Douglass and Garrison. Douglass further angered Garrison by saying that the Constitution could and should be used as an instrument in the fight against slavery. With this, Douglass began to assert his independence from the Garrisonians. Garrison saw the North Star as being in competition with the National Anti-Slavery Standard and Marius Robinson's Anti-Slavery Bugle.

In March 1860, Annie, Douglass' youngest daughter, died in Rochester, New York, while he was still in England. Douglass returned from England the following month, taking the route through Canada to avoid detection.

By the time of the Civil War, Douglass was one of the most famous black men in the country, known for his oratories on the condition of the black race, and other issues such as women's rights.

Fight for Emancipation

Douglass and the abolitionist argued that the aim of the war was to end slavery and that African Americans should be allowed to engage in the fight for their freedom. Douglass wrote about this in his newspapers and gave several speeches declaring his thoughts and how the war was indeed for the liberation of the slaves.

The night of December 31, 1862, when President Lincoln announced the Emancipation Proclamation, Douglass describes the spirit of those waiting for the announcement: "We were waiting and listening as for a bolt from the sky...we were watching...by the dim light of the stars for the dawn of a new day...we were longing for the answer to the agonizing prayers of centuries."[1]

Once the slaves were freed, Douglass also wanted equality for his people as well. He and Lincoln worked together providing plans to move the liberated slaves out of the South. Lincoln had doubts about the war ever ending, but soon enough the Confederate forces gave into the Union and the war to end slavery had been won.

Reconstruction era

Cedar Hill, Douglass' house in Washington, D.C.

After the Civil War, Douglass held several important political positions. He served as President of the Reconstruction-era Freedman's Savings Bank; as marshal of the District of Columbia; as minister-resident and consul-general to the Republic of Haiti (1889–1891); and as chargé d'affaires for the Dominican Republic. After two years, he resigned from his ambassadorship because of disagreements with U.S. government policy. In 1872, he moved to Washington, D.C., after his house on South Avenue in Rochester, New York burned down — arson was suspected. Also lost was a complete issue of The North Star.

In 1868, Douglass supported the presidential campaign of Ulysses S. Grant. The Klan Act and the second and third Enforcement Acts were signed into law by President Grant. Grant used their provisions vigorously, suspending habeas corpus in South Carolina and sending troops there and into other states; under his leadership, over 5,000 arrests were made and the Ku Klux Klan was dealt a serious blow. Grant's vigor in disrupting the Klan made him unpopular among many whites, but Frederick Douglass praised him. An associate of Douglass wrote of Grant that African Americans "will ever cherish a grateful remembrance of his name, fame and great services."

In 1872, Douglass became the first African American to receive a nomination for Vice President of the United States, having been nominated to be Victoria Woodhull's running mate on the Equal Rights Party ticket without his knowledge. During the campaign, he neither campaigned for the ticket nor even acknowledged that he had been nominated. Douglass spoke at many schools around the country in the Reconstruction era, including Bates College in Lewiston, Maine in 1873.

Lincoln's death

At Abraham Lincoln's memorial, Douglass was in the audience while a tribute to Lincoln was being given by a prominent lawyer. The tribute was not as successful as some of the audience there would have hoped. Reluctantly, Douglass was goaded by the people to stand up and speak. At first out of respect for the speaker he declined, but eventually he gave into the pressure and with no preparation gave a fantastic tribute to the President for which he received much respect. The crowd, roused by his speech, gave him a standing ovation. A witness later said, "I have heard Clay speak and many fantastic men, but never have I heard a speech as impressive as that."[citation needed] While this is anecdotal, it is a commonly accepted fact that Lincoln's wife gave Douglass Lincoln's favorite walking stick which still rests in Cedar Lodge. This is both a testimony to the success of Douglass' tribute to Lincoln and also to the effect and influence of his powerful oratory.

Later life

Douglass had five children; two of them, Charles and Rossetta, helped produce his newspapers. Douglass was an ordained minister of the African Methodist Episcopal Church.

In 1877, Frederick Douglass purchased his final home in Washington D.C., on the banks of the Anacostia River. He named it Cedar Hill (also spelled CedarHill). He expanded the house from 14 to 21 rooms and included a china closet. One year later, Douglass expanded his property to 15 acres (61,000 m²), with the purchase of adjoining lots. The home is now the location of the Frederick Douglass National Historic Site.

Frederick Douglass

After the disappointments of Reconstruction, many African Americans called Exodusters moved to Kansas to form all-black towns. Douglass spoke out against the movement, urging blacks to stick it out. He was condemned and booed by black audiences.

In 1877, Douglass was appointed a United States Marshal. In 1881, he was appointed Recorder of Deeds for the District of Columbia. His wife (Anna Murray Douglas) died in 1882, leaving him in a state of depression. His association with the activist Ida B. Wells brought meaning back into his life. In 1884, Douglass married Helen Pitts, a white feminist from Honeoye, New York. Pitts was the daughter of Gideon Pitts, Jr., an abolitionist colleague and friend of Douglass. A graduate of Mount Holyoke College (at that time Mount Holyoke Female Seminary), Pitts had worked on a radical feminist publication named Alpha while living in Washington, D.C.. Frederick and Helen Pitts Douglass faced a storm of controversy as a result of their marriage, since she was a white woman and nearly 20 years younger than he. Both families recoiled; hers stopped speaking to her; his was bruised, as they felt his marriage was a repudiation of their mother. But individualist feminist Elizabeth Cady Stanton congratulated the two.[2]

The new couple traveled to England, France, Italy, Egypt and Greece from 1886 to 1887. In later life, Douglass was determined to ascertain his birthday. He adopted Februaury 14th as his birthday because his mother, Harriet Bailey, used to call him her "little valentine". He was born in February of 1816 by his own calculations, but historians have found a record indicating his birth in February of 1818.

In 1892 the Haitian government appointed Douglass as its commissioner to the Chicago World's Columbian Exposition. He spoke for Irish Home Rule and on the efforts of Charles Stewart Parnell. He briefly revisited Ireland in 1886.

Death

On February 20, 1895, Douglass attended a meeting of the National Council of Women in Washington, D.C. During that meeting, he was brought to the platform and given a standing ovation by the audience.

Shortly after he returned home, Frederick Douglass died of a massive heart attack or stroke in his adopted hometown of Washington, D.C. He is buried in Mount Hope Cemetery in Rochester, New York.

In 1921, members of the Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity designating Frederick Douglass as an honorary member of the fraternity. He holds the distinction of being the only member initiated posthumously.[3]

Douglass' works

By Douglass

Speeches

  • The Church and Prejudice - delivered at the Plymouth County Anti-Slavery Society on November 4, 1841
  • Fighting Rebels With Only One Hand - in Douglass' Monthly in September 1861
  • What the Black Man Wants - delivered at the Annual Meeting of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society in Boston, April, 1865

Fiction

Famous quotes

  • "I am a Republican, a black, dyed in the wool Republican, and I never intend to belong to any other party than the party of freedom and progress."[1]
  • "Those who profess to favor freedom and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the roar of its many waters."
  • "To make a contented slave it is necessary to make a thoughtless one. It is necessary to darken the moral and mental vision and, as far as possible, to annihilate the power of reason."
  • "I assert most unhesitatingly, that the religion of the South is a mere covering for the most horrid crimes - a justifier of the most appalling barbarity, a sanctifier of the most hateful frauds, and a dark shelter under which the darkest, foulest, grossest, and most infernal deeds of slaveholders find the strongest protection."
  • "Without struggle, there is no progress."
  • "[Lincoln was] the first great man that I talked with in the United States freely who in no single instance reminded me of the difference between himself and myself, of the difference of color."[4] - On Abraham Lincoln
  • "Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did, and it never will."

See also

Notes

  • Parts of this article are drawn from Houston A. Baker, Jr., introduction to the 1986 Penguin edition of Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass.

References

  1. ^ The Fight For Emancipation Accessed April 19, 2007.
  2. ^ Frederick Douglas biography at winningthevote.org. Accessed October 3, 2006.
  3. ^ Prominent Alpha Men Accessed May 6, 2007.
  4. ^ Life and Times of Frederick Douglass, by Frederick Douglass, 1895

Further reading

Scholarship

  • Henry Louis Gates, Jr., ed. Frederick Douglass, Autobiography (Library of America, 1994) ISBN 978-0-94045079-0
  • Foner, Philip Sheldon. The Life and Writings of Frederick Douglass. New York: International Publishers, 1950.
  • Huggins, Nathan Irvin, and Oscar Handlin. Slave and Citizen: The Life of Frederick Douglass. Library of American Biography. Boston: Little, Brown, 1980. ISBN
  • Lampe, Gregory P. Frederick Douglass: Freedom's Voice,. Rhetoric and Public Affairs Series. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1998. ISBN-X (alk. paper) ISBN (pbk. alk. paper) (on his oratory)
  • Levine, Robert S. Martin Delany, Frederick Douglass, and the Politics of Representative Identity. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997. ISBN (alk. paper). ISBN (pbk.: alk. paper) (cultural history)
  • McFeely, William S. Frederick Douglass. New York: Norton, 1991. ISBN
  • Quarles, Benjamin. Frederick Douglass. Washington: Associated Publishers, 1948.

For Young Readers

  • Miller, William. Frederick Douglass: The Last Day of Slavery. Illus. by Cedric Lucas. Lee & Low Books, 1995. ISBN.
  • Weidt, Maryann N. Voice of Freedom: a Story about Frederick Douglass. Illus. by Jeni Reeves. Lerner Publications, 2001. ISBN.

Documentary Films

  • Frederick Douglass [videorecording] / produced by Greystone Communications, Inc. for A&E Network ; executive producers, Craig Haffner and Donna E. Lusitana.; 1997
  • Frederick Douglass: when the lion wrote history [videorecording] / a co-production of ROJA Productions and WETA-TV ; produced and directed by Orlando Bagwell ; narration written by Steve Fayer.; c1994
  • Frederick Douglass, abolitionist editor [videorecording] / a production of Schlessinger Video Productions, a division of Library Video Company ; produced and directed by Rhonda Fabian, Jerry Baber ; script, Amy A. Tiehel
  • Race to freedom [videorecording] : the story of the underground railroad / an Atlantis Films Limited production in association with United Image Entertainment; produced in association with the Family Channel (US), Black Entertainment Television and CTV Television Network, Ltd. ; produced with the participation of Telefilm Canada, Ontario Film Development Corporation and with the assistance of Rogers Telefund ; distributed by Xenon Pictures ; executive producers, Seaton McLean, Tim Reid ; co-executive producers, Peter Sussman, Anne Marie La Traverse ; supervising producer, Mary Kahn ; producers, Daphne Ballon, Brian Parker ; directed by Don McBrearty ; teleplay by Diana Braithwaite, Nancy Trites Botkin, Peter Mohan. Publisher Santa Monica, CA : Xenon Pictures, Inc., 2001. Tim Reid as Frederick Douglass.
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Douglass' works online

Biographical information

Memorials to Frederick Douglass

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Preceded by
None
 United States Equal Rights Party Vice-Presidential Nominee
1872 		Succeeded by
Marietta Stow (National Equal Rights Party)
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