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Frederick Douglass

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Frederick Douglass (born: Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey -- c.1818 - February 20, 1895) American abolitionist, editor, orator, writer, statesman and reformer. Known as the "Sage of Anacostia" and the "Lion of Anacostia". Douglass was the most prominent African-American of his time, and one of the most influential lecturers and authors in American history.
Image:Frederick_Douglass.jpg
Frederick Douglass was born a slave in Talbot County, Maryland near Tucaho creek. As a boy, Douglass lived twelve miles from his mother and never learned the identity of his father. His mother, walked the twenty-four mile round trip to visit him, died when he was nine years old. At age twelve, his owner, Sophia Auld, broke the law by teaching him to read. His master, Hugh Auld, disapproved, saying that if a slave learns to read, he would become dissatisfied with his condition and desire freedom; Douglass later referred to this as the first abolitionist speech he had ever heard. Another turning point was when he purchased a copy of the book The Columbian Orator: Containing a Variety of Original and Selected Pieces Together With Rules, Which Are Calculated to Improve Youth and Others, in the Ornamental and useful art of eloquence by Caleb Bingham, A. M. (ISBN 0814713238). Douglas studied and memorized classic speeches by Cicero in order to find his own voice. Hugh and Sophia Auld hired Douglass out to work as a caulker in a Baltimore, Maryland shipyard and allowed him to keep a portion of his wages. Though he became a master caulker, whites refused to work alongside him. 1837, Douglass joined the East Baltimore Mental Improvement Society, a debating club of free blacks. Through the society, he met a free African-American housekeeper, Anna Murray. Anna Murray sold a poster bed to buy sailor's papers needed for Frederick Douglass's escape. On September 3, 1838 he boarded a train in Maryland on his way to freedom from slavery, dressed in a sailor's uniform and carrying identification papers provided by a free black seaman. Though he did not match the physical description in the papers, the conductor gave them only a casual glance. From Baltimore, Douglass made his way to Wilmington, Delaware to Philadelphia to New York and finally to New Bedford, Massachusetts. This was by no means the most creative escape; Henry Brown mailed himself to Philadelphia in a box. He later became the publisher of a series of newspapers: "The North Star", "Frederick Douglass Weekly", "Frederick Douglass' Paper", "Douglass' Monthly" and the "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 Brethen". His work spanned the years prior to and during the Civil War. He knew John Brown but did not approve of Brown's plan to start an armed slave revolt. He conferred with President Abraham Lincoln on the treatment of black soldiers in 1863 and with President Andrew Johnson on the subject of black suffrage. His closest collaborators were the white abolitionists William Lloyd Garrison and Wendell Phillips. Douglass' most well-known work is his autobiography Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, which was published in 1845. Critics frequently attacked the book as inauthentic, not believing that a black man could possibly have written so eloquent a work. It was an immediate bestseller and received overwhelmingly positive critical reviews. Within three years of publication, it had been reprinted nine times with 11,000 copies circulating in the United States and translated into French and Dutch. The book's success had an unfortunate side effect when his friends and mentors became afraid that the publicity would draw the attention of his ex-owner who could try to get their "property" back. They encouraged him to go on a tour in Ireland, as many other ex-slaves had done in the past. He set sail for Liverpool on August 16, 1845, and arrived in Ireland when the Irish famine was just starting. Douglass spent two years in the British Isles and gave several lectures, mainly in Protestant churches. He met and befriended Irish nationalist Daniel O'Connell. When Douglass visited Scotland, the members of Free Church of Scotland, whom he had criticized for accepting money from US slave-owners, demonstrated against him with placards that read "Send back the nigger." Douglas was only able safely to return to the US when two Englishwomen, Ellen and Anna Richardson, purchased his freedom from his former master, Hugh Auld, for $710710.96 or £150150. Douglass had five children. Charles and Rossetta helped produce Frederick Douglass' Paper. Douglass supported the presidential campaign of Ulysses S. Grant. The Klan Act and Enforcement Act were signed into law by President Grant. Grant used their provisions vigorously, suspending habeas corpus in South Carolina, sending troops into that and 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 gained him unpopularity among many whites, but Frederick Douglass praised him. An associate of Douglass wrote that African-Americans "will ever cherish a grateful remembrance of his name, fame and great services." By the time of the Civil War, Douglass was the most famous black man in the country, known for his oratories on the condition of the black race, and other issues such as women's rights. After the war, he served as President of the failed Reconstruction-era Freedman's Savings Bank, marshal of the District of Columbia, minister-resident and consul-general to the Republic of Haiti and chargé d'affaires for Santo Domingo. In 1892 the Haitian government appointed him has its commissioner to the Chicago World Columbian Exposition. He spoke for Irish Home Rule and efforts of Charles Stewart Parnell and briefly revisited Ireland in 1886. Frederick Douglass built a twenty-room house in fifteen acres of land he named Cedar Hill. In his later life Douglass determined to find his birthday. He was born in February of 1817 by his own calculations but historians have found a record indicating his birth in February of 1818. Frederick Douglass died of a heart attack or stroke in his adopted hometown, Washington D.C.

Table of contents
1 Quotes
2 References
3 Books by Douglass
4 Books on Douglass
5 External links

Quotes

If there is no struggle, there is no progress. 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 lightening. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters.

This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what a people will submit to, and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them; and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.

***

Men may not get all they pay for in this world; but they must pay for all they get. If we ever get free from all the oppressions and wrongs heaped upon us, we must pay for their removal. We must do this by labor, by suffering, by sacrifice, and, if needs be, by our lives, and the lives of others.

From an address on West India Emancipation, August 4, 1857.

More than twenty years of unswerving devotion to our common cause may give me some humble claim to be trusted at this momentous crisis. I will not argue. To do so implies hesitation and doubt, and you do not hesitate. You do not doubt. The day dawns; the morning star is bright upon the horizon! The iron gate of our prison stands half open. One gallant rush from the North will fling it wide open, while four millions of our brothers and sisters shall march out into liberty. The chance is now given you to end in a day the bondage of centuries, and to rise in one bound from social degradation to the place of common equality with all other varieties of men.

Men of Color, To Arms! March 21, 1863[1]

I have often been utterly astonished, since I came to the north, to find persons who could speak of the singing, among slaves, as evidence of their contentment and happiness. It is impossible to conceive of a greater mistake. Slaves sing most when they are most unhappy. The songs of the slave represent the sorrows of his heart; and he is relieved by them, only as an aching heart is relieved by its tears. At least, such is my experience. I have often sung to drown my sorrow, but seldom to express my happiness. Crying for joy, and singing for joy, were alike uncommon to me while in the jaws of slavery. The singing of a man cast away upon a desolate island might be as appropriately considered as evidence of contentment and happiness, as the singing of a slave; the songs of the one and of the other are prompted by the same emotion.

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, Chapter II

Standing there identified with the American bondman, making his wrongs mine. I do not hesitate to declare with all my soul that the character and conduct of this nation never looked blacker to me than on this Fourth of July! Whether we turn to the declarations of the past or to the professions of the present, the conduct of the nation seems equally hideous and revolting. America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future.

"What To The Slave Is The 4th Of July?" Speech 1841. Given on the 5th of July in protest

I say nothing of father, for he is shrouded in a mystery I have never been able to penetrate. Slavery does away with fathers, as it does away with families. Slavery has no use for either fathers or families, and its laws do not recognize their existence in the social arrangements of the plantation.

My Bondage and My Freedom CHAPTER III Parentage, page 34/347[1]

We repeat, therefore, that we are here; and that this is our country; and the question forthe philosophers and statesmen of the land ought to be, What principles should dictate thepolicy of the action toward us? We shall neither die out, nor be driven out; but shall gowith this people, either as a testimony against them, or as an evidence in their favor throughout their generations.

There is a class of people who seem to think that if a man should fall overboard into the sea with a Bible in his pocket it would hardly be possible to drown.

References

Books by Douglass

Books on Douglass

External links