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Frederick Douglass
Frederick Douglass (February 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 is one of the most prominent figures in
African American history a. He was a firm believer in the equality of all
people, whether black, female, Native American, or recent immigrant. He was fond
of saying, "I would unite with anybody to do right and with nobody to do
wrong."
Frederick Douglass was born into
slavery on the Eastern Shore of Maryland in 1818, and was given the name
Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey (Baly), after his mother Harriet
Bailey.
He spent his early years with his
grandparents and with an aunt, seeing his mother only four or five times before
her death when he was seven. (All Douglass knew of his father was that he was
white.) During this time he was exposed to the degradations of slavery,
witnessing firsthand brutal whippings and spending much time cold and hungry.
When he was eight he was sent to Baltimore to live with a ship carpenter named
Hugh Auld. There he learned to read and first heard the words abolition and
abolitionists. "Going to live at Baltimore," Douglass would later say,
"laid the foundation, and opened the gateway, to all my subsequent
prosperity."
Douglass spent seven relatively
comfortable years in Baltimore before being sent back to the country, where he
was hired out to a farm run by a notoriously brutal "slavebreaker"
named Edward Covey. And the treatment he received was indeed brutal. Whipped
daily and barely fed, Douglass was "broken in body, soul, and spirit."
On January 1, 1836, Douglass made
a resolution that he would be free by the end of the year. He planned an escape.
But early in April he was jailed after his plan was discovered. Two years later,
while living in Baltimore and working at a shipyard, Douglass would finally
realize his dream: he fled the city on September 3, 1838. Traveling by train,
then steamboat, then train, he arrived in New York City the following day.
Several weeks later he had settled in New Bedford, Massachusetts, living with
his newlywed bride (whom he met in Baltimore and married in New York) under his
new name, Frederick Douglass.
Always striving to educate
himself, Douglass continued his reading. He joined various organizations in New
Bedford, including a black church. He attended Abolitionists' meetings. He
subscribed to William Lloyd Garrison's weekly journal, the Liberator. In 1841,
he saw Garrison speak at the Bristol Anti-Slavery Society's annual meeting.
Douglass was inspired by the speaker, later stating, "no face and form ever
impressed me with such sentiments [the hatred of slavery] as did those of
William Lloyd Garrison." Garrison, too, was impressed with Douglass,
mentioning him in the Liberator. Several days later Douglass gave his speech at
the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society's annual convention in Nantucket-- the
speech described at the top of this page. Of the speech, one correspondent
reported, "Flinty hearts were pierced, and cold ones melted by his
eloquence." Before leaving the island, Douglass was asked to become a
lecturer for the Society for three years. It was the launch of a career that
would continue throughout Douglass' long life.
Despite apprehensions that the
information might endanger his freedom, Douglass published his autobiography,
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Written By
Himself. The year was 1845. Three years later, after a speaking tour of England,
Ireland, and Scotland, Douglass published the first issue of the North Star, a
four-page weekly, out of Rochester, New York.
Renowned for his eloquence, he
lectured throughout the US and England on the brutality and immorality of
slavery. As a publisher his North Star and Frederick Douglass' Paper brought
news of the anti-slavery movement to thousands. Forced to leave the country to
avoid arrest after John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry, he returned to become a
staunch advocate of the Union cause. He helped recruit African American troops
for the Union Army, and his personal relationship with Lincoln helped persuade
the President to make emancipation a cause of the Civil War. Two of Douglass'
sons served in the 54th Massachusetts Regiment, which was made up entirely of
African American volunteers. The storming of Fort Wagner by this regiment was
dramatically portrayed in the film Glory! A painting of this event hangs in the
front hall at Cedar Hill.
All of Douglass' children were
born of his marriage to Anna Murray. He met Murray, a free African American, in
Baltimore while he was still held in slavery. They were married soon after his
escape to freedom. After the death of his first wife, Douglass married his
former secretary, Helen Pitts, of Rochester, NY. Douglass dismissed the
controversy over his marriage to a white woman, saying that in his first
marriage he had honored his mother's race, and in his second marriage, his
father's.
In 1872, Douglass moved to
Washington, DC where he initially served as publisher of the New National Era,
which was intended to carry forward the work of elevating the position of
African Americans in the post-Emancipation period. This enterprise was
discontinued when the promised financial backing failed to materialize. In this
period Douglass also served briefly as President of the Freedmen's National
Bank, and subsequently in various national service positions, including US
Marshal for the District of Columbia, and diplomatic positions in Haiti and the
Dominican Republic.
Frederick Douglass sought to embody
three keys for success in life:
- Believe in yourself.
- Take advantage of every
opportunity.
- Use the power of spoken and
written language to effect positive change for yourself and society.
Frederick Douglass once told a
group of African American students from a school in Talbot County, Maryland, "What
is possible for me is possible for you. Do not think because you are colored you
cannot accomplish anything. Strive earnestly to add to your knowledge. So long
as you remain in ignorance, so long will you fail to command the respect of your
fellow men."
By taking these keys and
making them his own, Frederick Douglass created a life of honor, respect and
success that he could never have dreamed of when still a boy on Colonel Lloyd's
plantation on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. |
