The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass (African American) - Kindle edition by Frederick Douglass. Politics & Social Sciences Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com.
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Frederick Douglass, born Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey, was an American social reformer, abolitionist, orator, writer and statesman.
Background
Frederick Douglass was born on February 14, 1818, into slavery on the Eastern Shore of the Chesapeake Bay in Talbot County, Maryland. His mother, from whom he was separated at an early age, was a slave named Harriet Bailey. He never knew or saw his father. Douglass's childhood, though he judged it in his autobiography as being no more cruel than that of scores of others caught in similar conditions, appears to have been extraordinarily deprived of personal warmth.
In 1825 his masters decided to send him to Baltimore to live with Hugh Auld. Mrs. Auld, Douglass's new mistress and a Northerner unacquainted with the disciplinary techniques Southern slaveholders used to preserve docility in their slaves, treated young Douglass well.
Education
Mrs. Auld taught him the rudiments of reading and writing until her husband stopped her. With this basic background he began his self-education.
Career
After numerous ownership disputes and after attempting to escape from a professional slave breaker, Douglass was put to work in the Baltimore shipyards. There in 1838 he borrowed a African American sailor's protection papers and by impersonating him escaped to New York. He adopted the name Douglass and settled in New Bedford, Massachusetts.
Douglass quickly became involved in the antislavery movement, which was gaining impetus in the North. In 1841, at an abolitionist meeting in Nantucket, Massachusetts, he delivered a moving speech about his experiences as a slave and was immediately hired as a lecturer by the Massachusetts Antislavery Society. His self-taught prose and manner of speaking so inspired some Harvard students that they persuaded him to write his autobiography. The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass was published in 1845. The 1845 publication, of course, meant exile for Douglass, a fugitive slave.
Fearing capture, Douglass fled to Britain, staying from 1845 to 1847 to speak on behalf of abolition and to earn enough money to purchase his freedom when he returned to America. Upon his return Douglass settled in Rochester, New York, and started publishing his newspaper, North Star (which continued to be published under various names until 1863).
In 1858, as a consequence of his fame and as unofficial spokesman for African Americans, Douglass was sought out by John Brown as a recruit for his planned attack on the Harpers Ferry arsenal. But Douglass could see no benefit from what he considered a futile plan and refused to lend his support.
The Civil War, beginning in 1861, raised several issues, not the least of which was what role the black man would play in his own liberation - since one of the main objectives of the war was emancipation of the slaves. Douglass kept this issue alive. In 1863, as a result of his continued insistence (as well as of political and military expediency), President Abraham Lincoln asked him to recruit African American soldiers for the Union Army. As the war proceeded, Douglass had two meetings with Lincoln to discuss the use and treatment of African American soldiers by the Union forces. In consequence, the role of African American soldiers was upgraded each time and their military effectiveness thereby increased.
The Reconstruction period laid serious responsibilities on Douglass. Politicians differed on the question of race and its corresponding problems, and as legislative battles were waged to establish the constitutional integrity of the slaves' emancipation, Douglass was the one African American with stature enough to make suggestions.
In 1870 Douglass began publishing the New National Era newspaper in Washington, D.C. In 1877 he was appointed by President Rutherford B. Hayes to the post of U.S. marshal for the District of Columbia. From this time until approximately 2 years before his death Douglass held a succession of offices, including that of recorder of deeds for the District of Columbia and minister-resident and consul-general to the Republic of Haiti, as well as chargé d'affaires to Santo Domingo. He resigned his assignments in Haiti and Santo Domingo when he discovered that American businessmen were taking advantage of his position in their dealings with the Haitian government. He died on February 20, 1895, in Washington, D.C.
Achievements
Frederick Douglass was one of the most eminent human rights leaders of the 19th century, whose oratorical and literary brilliance thrust him into the forefront of the U.S. abolition movement, and he became the first black citizen to hold high rank in the U.S. government.
The Episcopal Church (USA) remembers Douglass annually on its liturgical calendar for February 20, the anniversary of his death. Many public schools have also been named in his honor.
He was inducted to the National Association of Black Journalists Hall of Fame.
In 1962, his home in Anacostia (Washington, D. C.) became part of the National Park System, and in 1988 was designated the Frederick Douglass National Historic Site.
In 1965, the U.S. Postal Service honored Douglass with a stamp in the Prominent Americans series.
In 1999, Yale University established the Frederick Douglass Book Prize for works in the history of slavery and abolition, in his honor.
Also in 2010, the New York Writers Hall of Fame inducted Douglass in its inaugural class.
In November, 2015, the University of Maryland dedicated Frederick Douglass Plaza, an outdoor space where visitors can read quotes and see a bronze statue of Douglass.
On May 20, 2018, Douglass was awarded an honorary law degree from the University of Rochester. The degree, which was accepted by Douglass' great-great-great-grandson, was the first posthumous honorary degree that the university had granted.
As a child, Frederick Douglass was exposed to a number of religious sermons, and in his youth, he sometimes heard Sophia Auld reading the Bible. In time, he became interested in literacy; he began reading and copying bible verses, and he eventually converted to Christianity.
Views
Quotations:
"If there is no struggle, there is no progress."
"It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men."
"The life of the nation is secure only while the nation is honest, truthful, and virtuous."
"Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe."
Personality
By all accounts Frederick Douglass was a forceful and even eloquent speaker.
Connections
In 1838 Frederick Douglas married Anna Murray. The couple had five children. Anna was a devoted wife, who supported her husband through thick and thin. He became depressed for a while after her death in 1882.
In 1884, Douglass married married Helen Pitts - a white feminist 20 years his junior. Their marriage caused considerable controversy as inter-racial marriages were very rare during those days.
Father:
Aaron Anthony
Mother:
Harriet Bailey
Sister:
Sara Bailey
Sister:
Eliza Bailey
Sister:
Perry Bailey
Sister:
Arianna Bailey
Sister:
Kitty Bailey
Wife:
Anna Murray-Douglass
Anna Murray-Douglass was an American abolitionist and member of the Underground Railroad.
Wife:
Helen Douglass (Pitts)
Helen Douglass (Pitts) was an American suffragist and abolitionist.
Daughter:
Rosetta Douglass-Sprague
Rosetta Douglass-Sprague was an American teacher and activist.
Son:
Lewis Henry Douglass
Lewis Henry Douglass was an American military.
Son:
Frederick Douglass, Jr.
Frederick Douglass, Jr. was an American military.
Son:
Charles Remond Douglass
Charles Remond Douglass served as military in New York during the Civil War, and was a clerk in the Freedmen's Bureau in Washington, D. C.
