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Dive into the remarkable life and enduring legacy of Frederick Douglass, a towering figure in American history whose voice echoed with power and passion. Bor...
- 11 min
- 183
- Bedtime History
Frederick Douglass was born an enslaved person in February 1818. When he was about eight, his owner sent him to work in Baltimore, Maryland. Although most people didn’t want enslaved people to learn to read, the wife of the man Douglass worked for taught him anyway. When he was about 20, Douglass disguised himself as a sailor and escaped to ...
- Who Was Frederick Douglass?
- Frederick Douglass Escapes from Slavery
- From Slavery to Abolitionist Leader
- 'Narrative of The Life of Frederick Douglass'
- Frederick Douglass in Ireland and Great Britain
- Frederick Douglass’ Abolitionist Paper
- Frederick Douglass Quotes
- Frederick Douglass During The Civil War
- Frederick Douglass: Later Life and Death
- Sources
Frederick Douglass was born into slaveryin or around 1818 in Talbot County, Maryland. Douglass himself was never sure of his exact birth date. His mother was an enslaved Black womenand his father was white and of European descent. He was actually born Frederick Bailey (his mother’s name), and took the name Douglass only after he escaped. His full n...
After several failed attempts at escape, Douglass finally left Covey’s farm in 1838, first boarding a train to Havre de Grace, Maryland. From there he traveled through Delaware, another slave state, before arriving in New Yorkand the safe house of abolitionist David Ruggles. Once settled in New York, he sent for Anna Murray, a free Black woman from...
After their marriage, the young couple moved to New Bedford, Massachusetts, where they met Nathan and Mary Johnson, a married couple who were born “free persons of color.” It was the Johnsons who inspired the couple to take the surname Douglass, after the character in the Sir Walter Scott poem, “The Lady of the Lake.” In New Bedford, Douglass began...
Two years later, Douglass published the first and most famous of his autobiographies, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave. (He also authored My Bondage and My Freedom and Life and Times of Frederick Douglass). In it Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, he wrote: “From my earliest recollection, I date the entertain...
Later that same year, Douglass would travel to Ireland and Great Britain. At the time, the former country was just entering the early stages of the Irish Potato Famine, or the Great Hunger. While overseas, he was impressed by the relative freedom he had as a man of color, compared to what he had experienced in the United States. During his time in ...
When he returned to the United States in 1847, Douglass began publishing his own abolitionist newsletter, the North Star. He also became involved in the movement for women’s rights. He was the only African American to attend the Seneca Falls Convention, a gathering of women’s rights activists in New York, in 1848. He spoke forcefully during the mee...
In 1852, he delivered another of his more famous speeches, one that later came to be called “What to a slave is the 4th of July?” In one section of the speech, Douglass noted, “What, to the American slave, 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 t...
During the brutal conflict that divided the still-young United States, Douglass continued to speak and worked tirelessly for the end of slavery and the right of newly freed Black Americans to vote. Although he supported President Abraham Lincoln in the early years of the Civil War, Douglass fell into disagreement with the politician after the Emanc...
In 1877, Douglass met with Thomas Auld, the man who once “owned” him, and the two reportedly reconciled. Douglass’ wife Anna died in 1882, and he married white activist Helen Pitts in 1884. In 1888, he became the first African American to receive a vote for President of the United States, during the Republican National Convention. Ultimately, thoug...
Frederick Douglas, PBS.org. Frederick Douglas, National Parks Service, nps.gov. Frederick Douglas, 1818-1895, Documenting the South, University of North Carolina, docsouth.unc.edu. Frederick Douglass Quotes, brainyquote.com. “Reception Speech. At Finsbury Chapel, Moorfields, England, May 12, 1846.” USF.edu. “What to the slave is the 4th of July?” T...
Introduction. His brilliant speaking and writing made Frederick Douglass a leader of the movement to abolish slavery. Douglass was once enslaved himself. He was the first African American citizen to hold an important position in the U.S. government.
Abolitionist and social reformer Frederick Douglass was one of the US’s most important Black leaders and activists. Following the American Civil War, he developed a passionate, hopeful vision for the future of the nation that he laid out in his speech “Composite Nation”. Frances Ellen Watkins Harper’s Pursuit of Absolute Equality.
