Frederick Douglass

Frederick Douglass (February 14, 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 was one of the most prominent figures in African American history, and one of the most influential lecturers and authors in American history. His towering posture showed dignity and strength, and when he spoke, his baritone voice was powerful. These features together gave Douglass a strong presence. He was a firm believer in the equality of all people, whether black, female, American Indian, or recent immigrant. Douglass devoted his life to advocating the brotherhood of all humankind. He was fond of saying, "I would unite with anybody to do right and with nobody to do wrong."

Life as a slave
Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey, who later became known as Frederick Douglass, was born a slave in Talbot County, Maryland, near Hillsboro. Some scholars speculate that Douglass was the descendant of early American Muslims. He was separated from his mother, Harriet Bailey, when he was still an infant. She died when Douglass was about 7. The identity of Douglass' father is obscure: Douglass originally stated that his father was a white man, perhaps his owner, Aaron Anthony; but he later said he knew nothing of his father's identity. At the age of 6, Douglass was separated from his grandmother and moved to the Wye House plantation, where Anthony worked as overseer. When Anthony died, Douglass was given to Lucretia Auld, wife of Thomas Auld. Mrs. Auld sent Douglass to Baltimore to serve Thomas' brother, Hugh Auld.

When Douglass was about 12, Hugh Auld's wife, Sophia, broke the law by teaching him some letters of the alphabet. Thereafter, as detailed in his Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave (published in 1845), Douglass succeeded in learning to read from white children in the neighborhood in which he lived, and by observing the writings of the men with whom he worked. When Hugh Auld discovered this, he strongly disapproved, saying that if a slave learned to read, he would become dissatisfied with his condition and desire freedom; Douglass later referred to this as the first anti-abolitionist speech he had ever heard.

In 1833, Thomas Auld took Douglass back from his brother after a dispute ("as a means of punishing Hugh," Douglass wrote).

Dissatisfied with him, Thomas Auld then sent Douglass to work for Edward Covey, a poor farmer who had a reputation as a "slave-breaker," where Douglass was whipped regularly.

Sixteen-year-old Douglass was indeed nearly broken psychologically by his ordeal under Covey, but he finally rebelled against the beatings and fought back. Covey lost in a confrontation with Douglass and never tried to beat him again. This incident was kept under wraps, possibly because Covey was afraid the news of Douglass' victory would ruin his reputation as a "slave-breaker" or simply because he was ashamed of his defeat.

In 1837, Douglass met Anna Murray, a free African American, in Baltimore while he was still enslaved. They were married soon after he obtained his freedom.

From slavery to freedom
In 1836, Douglass first attempted to escape from his owner, Covey. He was unsuccessful.

Douglass successfully escaped slavery on September 3, 1838, boarding a train to Havre de Grace, Maryland, dressed in a sailor's uniform and carrying identification papers provided by a free black seaman. After crossing the Susquehanna River by ferry at Havre de Grace, Douglass continued by train to Wilmington, Delaware. From there Douglass went by steamboat to "Quaker City" — Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His escape to freedom eventually led him to New York, the entire journey taking less than 24 hours. Douglass "officially" won his freedom when British sympathizers paid the slaveholder who legally still owned him.

Autobiography
Douglass' best-known work is his first autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, which was published in 1845. At the time, some skeptics attacked the book as inauthentic, questioning whether a black man could have produced such an eloquent piece of literature. Nevertheless, the book received generally positive reviews and it became an immediate bestseller. Within three years of its publication, it had been reprinted nine times with 11,000 copies circulating in the United States; it was also translated into French and Dutch.

The book's success had an unfortunate side effect: 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 him to tour Ireland, as many other former slaves had done. Douglass set sail on the Cambria for Liverpool on August 16, 1845, and arrived in Ireland as the Irish Potato Famine was beginning.

Douglass published three versions of his autobiography during his lifetime (and revised the third of these), each time expanding on the previous one. The 1845 Narrative, which was his biggest seller, was followed by My Bondage and My Freedom in 1855. In 1881, after the Civil War, Douglass brought out Life and Times of Frederick Douglass, which he revised in 1892.

Travels to Europe
Mural featuring Frederick Douglass in Belfast, Northern Ireland

Douglass spent two years in Great Britain and Ireland and gave several lectures, mainly in Protestant churches or chapels. Some were "crowded to suffocation," such was his draw; an example is his hugely popular London Reception Speech, which Douglass delivered at Alexander Fletcher's Finsbury Chapel in London in May 1846. Douglass remarked that there he was treated not "as a color, but as a man." He met and befriended the Irish nationalist Daniel O'Connell.

Return to the United States
Douglass later became the publisher of a series of newspapers: The North Star, Frederick Douglass Weekly, Frederick Douglass' Paper, Douglass' Monthly and New National Era. 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."

Douglass' work spanned the years prior to and during the Civil War. He was acquainted with the radical abolitionist John Brown but disapproved of Brown's plan to start an armed slave rebellion in the South. Brown visited Douglass' home two months before he led the raid on the federal armory in Harpers Ferry. After the incident, Douglass fled for a time to Canada, fearing he might be arrested as a co-conspirator. Douglass believed that the attack on federal property would enrage the American public. Douglass would later share a stage in Harpers Ferry with Andrew Hunter, the prosecutor who successfully convicted Brown.

Douglass conferred with President Abraham Lincoln in 1863 on the treatment of black soldiers, and with President Andrew Johnson on the subject of black suffrage. His early collaborators were the white abolitionists William Lloyd Garrison and Wendell Phillips. In the early 1850s, however, Douglass split with the Garrisonians over the issue of the United States Constitution.

Reconstruction era
After the Civil War, Douglass held several important political positions. He served as President of the Reconstruction-era Freedman's Savings Bank; as marshal of the District of Columbia; as minister-resident and consul-general to the Republic of Haiti (1889–1891); and as chargé d'affaires for the Dominican Republic. After two years, he resigned from his ambassadorship because of disagreements with U.S. government policy. In 1872, he moved to Washington, D.C., after his house on South Avenue in Rochester, New York burned down — arson was suspected. Also lost was a complete issue of The North Star.

In 1868, Douglass supported the presidential campaign of Ulysses S. Grant. The Klan Act and the second and third Enforcement Acts were signed into law by President Grant. Grant used their provisions vigorously, suspending habeas corpus in South Carolina and sending troops there and into other states; under his leadership, over 5,000 arrests were made and the Ku Klux Klan was dealt a serious blow. Grant's vigor in disrupting the Klan made him unpopular among many whites, but Frederick Douglass praised him. An associate of Douglass wrote of Grant that African Americans "will ever cherish a grateful remembrance of his name, fame and great services."

In 1872, Douglass became the first African American to receive a nomination for Vice President of the United States, having been nominated to be Victoria Woodhull's running mate on the Equal Rights Party ticket without his knowledge. During the campaign, he neither campaigned for the ticket nor even acknowledged that he had been nominated. Douglass spoke at many schools around the country in the Reconstruction era, including Bates College in Lewiston, Maine in 1873.

Lincoln's death
At Abraham Lincoln's memorial, Douglass was in the audience while a tribute to Lincoln was being given by a prominent lawyer. The tribute was not as successful as some of the audience there would have hoped. Reluctantly, Douglass was goaded by the people to stand up and speak. At first out of respect for the speaker he declined, but eventually he gave into the pressure and with no preparation gave a fantastic tribute to the President for which he received much respect. The crowd, roused by his speech, gave him a standing ovation. A witness later said, "I have heard Clay speak and many fantastic men, but never have I heard a speech as impressive as that". While this is anecdotal, it is a commonly accepted fact that Lincoln's wife gave Douglass Lincoln's favorite walking stick which still rests in Cedar Lodge. This is both a testimony to the success of Douglass' tribute to Lincoln and also to the effect and influence of his powerful oratory.

Later life
Douglass had five children; two of them, Charles and Rossetta, helped produce his newspapers. Douglass was an ordained minister of the African Methodist Episcopal Church.

In 1877, Frederick Douglass purchased his final home in Washington D.C., on the banks of the Anacostia River. He named it Cedar Hill (also spelled CedarHill). He expanded the house from 14 to 21 rooms and included a china closet. One year later, Douglass expanded his property to 15 acres (61,000 m²), with the purchase of adjoining lots. The home is now the location of the Frederick Douglass National Historic Site.

After the disappointments of Reconstruction, many African Americans called Exodusters moved to Kansas to form all-black towns. Douglass spoke out against the movement, urging blacks to stick it out. He was condemned and booed by black audiences.

In 1877, Douglass was appointed a United States Marshal. In 1881, he was appointed Recorder of Deeds for the District of Columbia. His wife (Anna Murray Douglas) died in 1882, leaving him in a state of depression. His association with the activist Ida B. Wells brought meaning back into his life. In 1884, Douglass married Helen Pitts, a white feminist from Honeoye, New York. Pitts was the daughter of Gideon Pitts, Jr., an abolitionist colleague and friend of Douglass. A graduate of Mount Holyoke College (at that time Mount Holyoke Female Seminary), Pitts had worked on a radical feminist publication named Alpha while living in Washington, D.C.. Frederick and Helen Pitts Douglass faced a storm of controversy as a result of their marriage, since she was a white woman and nearly 20 years younger than he. Both families recoiled; hers stopped speaking to her; his was bruised, as they felt his marriage was a repudiation of their mother. But individualist feminist Elizabeth Cady Stanton congratulated the two.

The new couple traveled to England, France, Italy, Egypt and Greece from 1886 to 1887. In later life, Douglass was determined to ascertain his birthday. He adopted Februaury 14th as his birthday because his mother, Harriet Bailey, used to call him her "little valentine". He was born in February of 1816 by his own calculations, but historians have found a record indicating his birth in February of 1818.

In 1892 the Haitian government appointed Douglass as its commissioner to the Chicago World's Columbian Exposition. He spoke for Irish Home Rule and on the efforts of Charles Stewart Parnell. He briefly revisited Ireland in 1886.

Death
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 given a standing ovation by the audience.

Shortly after he returned home, Frederick Douglass died of a massive heart attack or stroke in his adopted hometown of Washington, D.C. He is buried in Mount Hope Cemetery in Rochester, New York.

In 1921, members of the Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity designating Frederick Douglass as an honorary member of the fraternity. He holds the distinction of being the only member initiated posthumously.

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