Frederick Douglass

Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey was born into slavery in Talbot County, Maryland, around 1818. The exact year and date of his birth are unknown, though later in life he chose to celebrate it on February 14. Frederick initially lived with his maternal grandmother, Betty Bailey. At a young age, he was selected to live in the home of the plantation owners, one of whom may have been his father. His mother died when he was around 10.

Frederick was eventually sent to the Baltimore home of Hugh Auld. Defying a ban on teaching slaves to read and write, Auld’s wife Sophia taught him the alphabet when he was around 12. When Auld forbade his wife’s lessons, Frederick continued to learn from white children and others in the neighborhood.

It was through reading that Frederick’s opposition to slavery began to take shape. He read newspapers avidly and sought out political writing and literature as much as possible. Frederick shared his newfound knowledge with other enslaved people. He also taught other slaves on the plantation to read the New Testament at a weekly church service. Interest was so great that more than 40 slaves would attend lessons every week. The local slave owners did not approve. Armed with clubs and stones, they dispersed the congregation permanently.

Frederick was later made to work for Edward Covey, a poor farmer who had a reputation as a “slave-breaker.” Covey’s constant abuse did nearly break the 16-year-old psychologically. One day, after numerous vicious beatings at Covey's hands, Frederick fought back. He fought off Covey's cousin and his fight with Covey himself, which lasted nearly two hours long, ended with Frederick’s victory. Covey never beat him again.

Frederick tried to escape from slavery twice before he succeeded. He was assisted in his final attempt by Anna Murray, a free black woman in Baltimore with whom he had fallen in love. On September 3, 1838, Frederick boarded a train to Havre de Grace, Maryland. Anna had provided him with some of her savings and a sailor's uniform. He carried identification papers obtained from a free black seaman. Frederick made his way to the safe house of abolitionist David Ruggles in New York in less than 24 hours.

Once he had arrived, Frederick sent for Anna to meet him in New York. They married on September 15, 1838, adopting the married name of Johnson to disguise his identity. Anna and Frederick settled in New Bedford, Massachusetts, which had a thriving free black community. There they adopted Douglass as their married name. Frederick Douglass joined a black church and regularly attended abolitionist meetings.

Eventually Douglass was asked to tell his story at abolitionist meetings, after which he became a regular anti-slavery lecturer. William Lloyd Garrison, writer of the abolitionist paper “The Liberator”, was impressed with Douglass’s strength and rhetorical skill, and wrote of him the paper. Several days after the story ran, Douglass delivered his first speech at the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society's annual convention in Nantucket. But the crowds were not always hospitable to Douglass. While participating in an 1843 lecture tour through the Midwest, Douglass was chased and beaten by an angry mob before being rescued by a local Quaker family.

At the urging of Garrison, Douglass wrote and published his first autobiography, “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave”, in 1845. The book was a best seller in the United States and was translated into several European languages. Although the work garnered Douglass many fans, some critics expressed doubt that a former slave with no formal education could have produced something so sophisticated. Douglass published three versions of his autobiography during his lifetime, revising and expanding on his work each time.

Following the publication of his autobiography, 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 Douglass to tour Ireland, as many former slaves had done. He set sail for Liverpool on August 16, 1845, and eventually arrived in Ireland as the Irish Potato Famine was beginning. The Great Famine was a period of mass starvation, disease, and emigration in Ireland between 1845 and 1852. During the famine, approximately 1 million people died and a million more emigrated from Ireland, causing the island's population to fall by between 20% and 25%.

The feeling of freedom from American racial discrimination amazed Douglass: “Eleven days and a half gone and I have crossed three thousand miles of the perilous deep. Instead of a democratic government, I am under a monarchical government. Instead of the bright, blue sky of America, I am covered with the soft, grey fog of the Emerald Isle (Ireland). I breathe, and lo! The chattel (slave) becomes a man. I gaze around in vain for one who will question my equal humanity, claim me as his slave, or offer me an insult. I employ a cab, I am seated beside white people; I reach the hotel, I enter the same door; I am shown into the same parlour, I dine at the same table and no one is offended...I find myself regarded and treated at every turn with the kindness and deference paid to white people. When I go to church, I am met by no upturned nose and scornful lip to tell me, ‘We don't allow niggers in here!’”

Douglass remained in Ireland and Britain for two years, speaking to large crowds on the evils of slavery. During this time, his British supporters gathered funds to purchase his legal freedom. Many supporters tried to encourage Douglass to remain in England but, with his wife still in Massachusetts and three million of his black brethren in bondage in the United States, he returned to the US in spring of 1847. Upon his return, Douglass produced his first abolitionist newspaper, “The North Star”. 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.”

Frederick Douglass also became an outspoken supporter of women’s rights. In 1848, he was the only African American to attend the first women's rights convention at Seneca Falls, New York. Elizabeth Cady Stanton asked the assembly to pass a resolution stating the goal of women's suffrage. Many attendees opposed the idea. Douglass stood and spoke powerfully in favor, arguing that he could not accept the right to vote as a black man if women could not also claim that right. He suggested that the world would be a better place if women were involved in the political sphere. After Douglass' powerful words, the attendees passed the resolution.

Douglass would later come into conflict with women’s rights activists. After the Civil War, the 15th Amendment giving freedmen and free blacks the right to vote was being debated. Douglass split with the Stanton-led group of the women's rights movement. Douglass supported the amendment, which would grant suffrage to black men. Stanton opposed the 15th Amendment because it limited expansion of suffrage to black men. She predicted its passage would delay for decades the cause for women's right to vote. Stanton argued that American women and black men should band together to fight for universal suffrage, and opposed any bill which split the issues. Douglass and Stanton both knew that there was not yet enough male support for women's right to vote, but that an amendment giving black men the vote could pass in the late 1860s. Stanton wanted to attach women's suffrage to that of black men so that her cause would be carried to success.

Douglass thought such a strategy was too risky, that there was barely enough support for black men's suffrage. He feared that linking the cause of women's suffrage to that of black men would result in failure for both. Douglass argued that white women, already empowered by their social connections to fathers, husbands, and brothers, at least vicariously had the vote. Black women, he believed, would have the same degree of empowerment as white women once black men had the vote. Douglass assured the American women that at no time had he ever argued against women's right to vote.

By the time of the Civil War, Douglass was one of the most famous black men in the country. He used his status to influence the role of African Americans in the war and their status in the country. In 1863, Douglass deliberated with President Abraham Lincoln regarding the treatment of black soldiers, and later with President Andrew Johnson on the subject of black suffrage.

President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, which took effect on January 1, 1863, declared the freedom of all slaves in Confederate territory. Slavery everywhere in the United States was subsequently outlawed by the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution. Douglass was appointed to several political positions following the war. He served as president of the Freedman's Savings Bank and as chargé d'affaires for the Dominican Republic. After two years, he resigned from his ambassadorship over objections to the particulars of US government policy. He was later appointed minister-resident and consul-general to the Republic of Haiti, a post he held between 1889 and 1891.

On April 14, 1876, Douglass delivered the keynote speech at the unveiling of the Emancipation Memorial in Washington’s Lincoln Park. In that speech, Douglass spoke frankly about Lincoln, noting what he perceived as both positive and negative attributes of the late President. Calling Lincoln “the white man's president”, Douglass criticized Lincoln's tardiness in joining the cause of emancipation, noting that Lincoln initially opposed the expansion of slavery but did not support its elimination. But Douglass also asked, “Can any colored man, or any white man friendly to the freedom of all men, ever forget the night which followed the first day of January 1863, when the world was to see if Abraham Lincoln would prove to be as good as his word? Though Mr. Lincoln shared the prejudices of his white fellow-countrymen against the Negro, it is hardly necessary to say that in his heart of hearts he loathed and hated slavery...." The crowd gave Douglass a standing ovation. Lincoln's widow, Mary, gave Lincoln's favorite walking-stick to Douglass in appreciation. That walking-stick still rests in Douglass's final residence, “Cedar Hill”, now preserved as the Frederick Douglass National Historic Site.

Douglass became the first African American nominated for vice president of the United States as Victoria Woodhull's, the first woman to run for president, running mate on the Equal Rights Party ticket in 1872. Nominated without his knowledge or consent, Douglass never campaigned. Nonetheless, his nomination marked the first time that an African American appeared on a presidential ballot.

After Anna’s death, Douglass married Helen Pitts, a white feminist from Honeoye, New York. Helen was the daughter of Gideon Pitts Jr., an abolitionist colleague and friend of Douglass. A graduate of Mount Holyoke Female Seminary, Helen worked on a radical feminist publication and shared many of Douglass’s moral principles. Their marriage caused considerable controversy, since Helen was white and nearly 20 years younger than Douglass. Her family stopped speaking to her and his children considered the marriage a rejection of their mother. Douglass responded to the criticisms by saying that his first marriage had been to someone the color of his mother and his second to someone the color of his father.

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 received a standing ovation. Shortly after he returned home, Frederick Douglass died of a massive heart attack or stroke. His funeral was held at the Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church; thousands passed by his coffin to show their respect. Douglass’ coffin was transported back to Rochester, New York and he was buried next to Anna in the Douglass family plot of Mount Hope Cemetery, and Helen joined them in 1903.