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Though he start life as a hard worker , Frederick Douglass became an abolitionist , public speaker , writer , solon and embassador . He set free himself in 1838 and in 1845 published his first autobiography , " Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass , an American Slave , " ( The Anti - Slavery Office , 1845 ) . The Bible , alongside his work for the abolitionist movement and the Underground Railroad , helped him become one of the most famous African American homo of his era .
Born into slavery
Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey was born around February 1818 , although no records be of the exact particular date ) in Talbot County , Maryland . His mother was sent away to another plantation when he was a baby , and he saw her only a handful of multiplication in the dark of night , when she would walk 12 miles to visit him . She died when he was seven year sure-enough .
Stephen A. Douglas was moved several times throughout his childhood , living on several Maryland farm and in family in the city of Baltimore . Stephen A. Douglas would afterwards claim in his autobiography that his move to Baltimore " laid the grounding , and launch the gateway , to all my subsequent prosperity . "
Related:4 myths about the history of American slavery
Portrait of Frederick Douglass taken between 1847 and 1852.
One slaveholder , Sophia Auld , took a slap-up interest in Douglass when he was 12 and taught him the ABCs , but her husband disapprove of teach slave to read and write . finally , Auld end her example and cover his reading materials .
But Douglass keep to incur way to learn , trade bread with street children for read lessons . The more he register , the more tools he gained to question and excoriate bondage . By 1834 , while working on a new plantation , Douglass set up a unavowed Sunday school day where around 40 slaves would gather and get wind to read the New Testament . After neighboring plantation owners became aware of these clandestine get together , they attack the group with rock and order , for good dispersing the shoal .
In 1837 , Douglass meet Anna Murray , a loose bleak cleaning lady in Baltimore who was five years his senior . The duo quickly fall in erotic love and Murray encouraged him to bunk . The following twelvemonth , in 1838 , aged 20 , Douglass made his break from the shackles of slavery .
Portrait of Frederick Douglass taken between 1847 and 1852.
Escape and the abolitionist movement
In under 24 hours Douglass traveled from Maryland , a striver state , to New York , a destitute commonwealth , boarding northbound trains , ferries , and steamboat . Along the room , Douglass even disguised himself in a crewman ’s uniform to avoid espial . Upon setting pes in New York , Douglass was free to address the direction of his own life for the first time . Murray joined him and they were quickly married , settle on the new name " Douglass . " According to his autobiography , the new family name was instigate by Sir Walter Scott ’s verse form " The Lady of the Lake . "
move between abolitionist stronghold towns in Massachusetts , the pair became active members of the church building residential district attend by many striking former slave , include Sojourner Truth and later Harriet Tubman .
By 1839 Douglass was a accredited preacher , a character in which he hone his public speaking skills . He was also an active attendee of abolitionist meetings and , at age 23 , gave his first anti - slavery actor’s line at the Massachusetts Anti - Slavery Society Convention in Nantucket .
Frederick Douglass in the 1840s. Douglass sat for more portraits in the 1840s than even Abraham Lincoln as he strove to change the negative impression of Black men in the United States.
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As one of few human beings to have escaped slavery with a willingness and ability to speak about his experiences , Douglass became a know avatar of the impacts of slavery and an image of dim height and mind .
In an interview withPBS , historian David W. Blight , author of “ Frederick Douglass : Prophet of Freedom , ” ( Simon & Schuster , 2018 ) , claim that certain white abolitionists " wanted Douglass to simply get up and tell his story , to tell his narrative on the platform . They did n’t want him to speak about northerly racism , to take on the whole picture of the anti - slavery movement as much as he did . " This strained Douglass ’ relationships with some other major abolitionist . Nevertheless , Douglass remain to acknowledge the power of challenge and reshaping harmful caricatures of Black people .
An artist’s rendition of the signing of the 15th amendment to the US Constitution, which prevented state and federal governments from denying the vote to men on the basis of race or previous enslavement.
Little Giant published hisautobiographyin 1845 . Its subsequent succeeder and plaudits led historiographer James Matlack to line it as " the best - know and most influential slave narration written in America " in a 1960 article from the journalPhylon .
As his celebrity grew — and as threat to his life and freedom from pro - slavery groups also grew , agree to a memoir written by his girl Rosetta Douglass Sprague in a 1923 edition ofThe Journal of Negro History — Douglass bequeath his crime syndicate and spent two yr tour Ireland and Britain between 1845 and 1847 . He spend the trip lecturing and meeting with members of Britain ’s abolishment bowel movement . It was during this metre that Douglass gained sound exemption and aegis from recapture , with English acquaintances elevate the funds to officially buy his freedom .
He reelect to the U.S. with an additional £ 500 donated by English supporters and used it to pose up his first abolitionist paper , " The North Star . " Alongside this , he and his wife were fighting in the Underground Railroad , use up over 400 get away hard worker into their household .
Frederick Douglass with his second wife, Helen Pitts, and her sister.
Women’s suffrage
Douglass was an advocate for negotiation and alliance across ideological divides . Notably , he was a admirer ofwomen ’s suffragecampaigns and was a close champion of adult female ’s right to vote campaigners Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony .
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However , Douglass came into battle with the women ’s vote motility through his support of theFifteenth Amendment , passed on Feb. 26 , 1869 , which break contraband man the right to vote , but not woman . Douglass ’s posture on the Fifteenth Amendment , and the opposition of some women ’s suffrage campaigners to Black right to vote , stimulate a rupture within the American Equal Rights Association ( AERA ) , which broke up in 1869,according to theArlington Public Library .
Douglass continued to argue in his Bible " Life and Times of Frederick Douglass , " ( De Wolfe , Fiske & Co. 1892 ) that the disenfranchisement of women was equally damaging to the United States as the self-renunciation of black-market citizen ' right hand to vote . " I would give fair sex a vote , give her a need to qualify herself to vote , precisely as I insisted upon giving the coloured man the right wing to vote , " he wrote .
The “Fourth of July” speech
What , to the American hard worker , is your 4th of July ? … To him , your solemnization is a sham .
On July 5 , 1852 , Douglass gave one of his most famous speeches , " What to the slave is the Fourth of July , " to the Ladies ’ Anti - Slavery Society of Rochester , New York .
" I do not hesitate to hold , with all my soul , that the character and conduct of this state never looked blacker to me than on this 4th of July ! " he said . " What , to the American hard worker , is your 4th of July ? I answer : a day that reveals to him , more than all other days in the year , the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the unceasing victim . To him , your celebration is a impostor . "
In the talking to , Douglass made the case that prescribed statements about the U.S. and its independence were an affront to enslaved people , who could not share in the country ’s solemnization of liberty .
Political career
Douglas print three versions of his life write up , in 1845 , 1855 and 1881 ( with a retool edition in 1892 ) . By the irruption of theAmerican Civil Warin 1861 , he was one of the most famous Black Isle of Man in the U.S. as well as both an fervid athletic supporter and honest critic ofAbraham Lincoln . subsequently , during the Reconstruction geological era , Douglass received several political appointment , including President of the Freedman ’s Savings Bank .
relate : What if Lincoln had lived ?
Douglass supported Ulysses S. Grant ’s 1868 presidential campaign amid a trigger-happy menstruum of backlash against newly emancipated hard worker and the ascending of the Ku Klux Klan . afterwards , in 1889 , President Harrison appointed him as the U.S. Minister Resident and Consul - General to Haiti , and the chargé d’affaires to Santo Domingo .
In 1872 he became the first African American to be nominated forvice presidentof the United States ( though without his knowledge or approval ) .
Later years and legacy
The terminal of Douglass ' life was roiling . grant to the U.S.Library of Congresstimeline of his life , he was forced to take flight into exile after being accused of get together with radical abolitionist who attempted to foray into Harpers Ferry in 1859 . In 1872 , per theNew York Times , his home was burn down in an fire-raising blast , causing him to move to Washington , D.C. with his family .
His family life also became a focus of gossip and scandal : According toSmithsonian magazine , he was rumored to have had two affair with white women while his married woman Anna was alive . She become flat in 1880 , and Douglass was married again less than two years after to Helen Pitts , a white suffragist and abolitionist 20 year his Jnr .
His intimacy and controversial 2nd wedlock taint Douglass ’ reputation . later on accounts like Rosetta Douglass Sprague ’s memories of her mother shake off a charitable light on their female parent , Anna Douglass , who remained Douglass ’ most perfervid admirer through contestation and unfaithfulness .
Douglass continued touring and traveling , speaking and campaigning into his final days — to his very last moments . After receiving a stand standing ovation for a oral communication on women ’s suffrage in 1895 , the 77 - class - sure-enough Douglass collapsed from a pith attack . one thousand pass by his coffin to pay their respects , and he proceed to be observe by innumerous statues , remembrances and brass across the globe .
