Frederick douglass mini biography

Charles Lawson, and, early in his activism, he often included biblical allusions and religious metaphors in his speeches. Although a believer, he strongly criticized religious hypocrisy [ 51 ] and accused slaveholders of " wickedness ", lack of morality, and failure to follow the Golden Rule. In this sense, Douglass distinguished between the "Christianity of Christ" and the "Christianity of America" and considered religious slaveholders and clergymen who defended slavery as the most brutal, sinful, and cynical of all who represented "wolves in sheep's clothing".

He considered that a law passed to support slavery was "one of the grossest infringements of Christian Liberty" and said that pro-slavery clergymen within the American Church "stripped the love of God of its beauty, and leave the throne of religion a huge, horrible, repulsive form", and "an abomination in the sight of God". He further asserted, "in speaking of the American church, however, let it be distinctly understood that I mean the great mass of the religious organizations of our land.

There are exceptions, and I thank God that there are. Noble men may be found, scattered all over these Northern States May of Syracuse, and my esteemed friend [Robert R. He maintained that "upon these men lies the duty to inspire our ranks with high religious faith and zeal, and to cheer us on in the great mission of the slave's redemption from his chains".

In addition, he called religious people to embrace abolitionism, stating, "let the religious press, the pulpit, the Sunday school, the conference meeting, the great ecclesiastical, missionary, Bible and tract associations of the land array their immense powers against slavery and slave-holding; and the whole system of crime and blood would be scattered to the winds.

During his visits to the United Kingdom between andDouglass asked British Christians never to support American churches that permitted slavery, [ 54 ] and he expressed his happiness to know that a group of ministers in Belfast had refused to admit slaveholders as members of the Church. On his return to the United States, Douglass founded the North Stara weekly publication with the motto "Right is of no sex, Truth is of no color, God is the Father of us all, and we are all Brethren.

Your wickedness and cruelty committed in this respect on your fellow-creatures, are greater than all the fredericks douglass mini biography you have laid upon my back, or theirs. It is an outrage upon the soul—a war upon the immortal spirit, and one for which you must give account at the bar of our common Father and Creator. Sometimes considered a precursor of a non-denominational liberation theology[ 56 ] [ 57 ] Douglass was a deeply spiritual man, as his home continues to show.

In addition to several Bibles and books about various religions in the library, images of angels and Jesus are displayed, as well as interior and exterior photographs of Washington's Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church. Blighthowever, "Douglass loved cigars" and received them as gifts from Ottilie Assing. Douglass praised the agnostic orator Robert G.

Ingersollwhom Douglass met in Peoria, Illinoisstating, "Genuine goodness is the same, whether found inside or outside the church, and that to be an 'infidel' no more proves a man to be selfish, mean and wicked than to be evangelical proves him to be honest, just and human. Perhaps there were Christian ministers and Christian families in Peoria at that time by whom I might have been received in the same gracious manner Charles and Rosetta helped produce his newspapers.

Anna Douglass remained a loyal supporter of her husband's public work.

Frederick douglass mini biography: Frederick Douglass was.

His relationships with Julia Griffiths and Ottilie Assingtwo women with whom he was professionally involved, caused recurring speculation and scandals. Untilshe often stayed at his house "for several months at a time" as his "intellectual and emotional companion". Assing held Anna Douglass "in utter contempt" and was vainly hoping that Douglass would separate from his wife.

Douglass biographer David W. Blight concludes that Assing and Douglass "were probably lovers". Anna died in Pitts was the daughter of Gideon Pitts Jr. She later worked as Douglass's secretary. Assing, who had depression and was diagnosed with incurable breast cancer, committed suicide in France in after hearing of the marriage.

Frederick douglass mini biography: Abolitionist leader Frederick Douglass was born

The marriage of Douglass and Pitts provoked a storm of controversy, since Pitts was both white and nearly 20 years younger. Many in her family stopped speaking to her; his children considered the marriage a repudiation of their mother. But feminist Elizabeth Cady Stanton congratulated the couple. The couple settled in New Bedford, Massachusetts an abolitionist center, full of former enslaved peopleinmoving to Lynn, Massachusettsin In New Bedford, the latter was such a common name that he wanted one that was more distinctive, and asked Nathan Johnson to choose a suitable surname.

Nathan suggested " Douglass ", after having read the poem The Lady of the Lake by Walter Scottin which two of the principal characters have the surname " Douglas ". Douglass thought of joining a white Methodist Churchbut was disappointed, from the beginning, upon finding that it was segregated. He held various positions, including stewardSunday-school superintendentand sexton.

InDouglass delivered a speech in Elmira, New Yorkthen a station on the Underground Railroadin which a black congregation would form years later, becoming the region's largest church by Douglass also joined several organizations in New Bedford and regularly attended abolitionist meetings. He later said that "no face and form ever impressed me with such sentiments [of the hatred of slavery] as did those of William Lloyd Garrison.

Garrison was likewise impressed with Douglass and had written about his anti- colonization stance in The Liberator as early as At another meeting, Douglass was unexpectedly invited to speak. After telling his story, Douglass was encouraged to become an anti-slavery lecturer. Then 23 years old, Douglass conquered his nervousness and gave an eloquent speech about his life as a slave.

While living in Lynn, Douglass engaged in an early protest against segregated transportation. Buffum were thrown off an Eastern Railroad train because Douglass refused to sit in the segregated railroad coach. InDouglass joined other speakers in the American Anti-Slavery Society 's "Hundred Conventions" project, a six-month tour at meeting halls throughout the eastern and midwestern United States.

During this tour, slavery supporters frequently accosted Douglass. At a lecture in Pendleton, Indianaan angry mob chased and beat Douglass before a local Quaker family, the Hardys, rescued him. His hand was broken in the attack; it healed improperly and bothered him for the rest of his life. I have no country. What country have I? The Institutions of this Country do not know me — do not recognize me as a man.

Douglass's best-known work is his first autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slavewritten during his time in Lynn, Massachusetts [ 82 ] and published in At the time, some skeptics questioned whether a black man could have produced such an eloquent piece of literature. The book received generally positive reviews and became an immediate bestseller.

Within three years, it had been reprinted nine times, with 11, copies circulating in the United States. It was also translated into French and Dutch and published in Europe. Douglass published three autobiographies during his lifetime and revised the third of theseeach time expanding on the previous one. The Narrative was his biggest frederick douglass mini biography and probably allowed him to raise the funds to gain his legal freedom the following year, as discussed below.

Inin his sixties, Douglass published Life and Times of Frederick Douglasswhich he revised in Douglass's 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 Douglass to tour Ireland, as many former slaves had done. Douglass set sail on the Cambria for LiverpoolEngland, on August 16, He traveled in Ireland as the Great Famine was beginning.

The feeling of freedom from American racial discrimination amazed Douglass: [ 83 ]. Eleven days and a half gone, and I have crossed three thousand miles of the perilous deep. Instead of a democratic government, I am under a monarchical government. Instead of the bright, blue sky of America, I am covered with the soft, grey fog of the Emerald Isle [Ireland].

I breathe, and lo! I gaze around in vain for one who will question my equal humanity, claim me as his slave, or offer me an insult. I employ a cab—I am seated beside white people—I reach the hotel—I enter the same door—I am shown into the same parlor—I dine at the same table—and no one is offended I find myself regarded and treated at every turn with the kindness and deference paid to white people.

When I go to church, I am met by no upturned nose and scornful lip to tell me, ' We don't allow niggers in here! Still, Douglass was astounded by the extreme levels of poverty he encountered in Dublin, much of it reminding him of his experiences in slavery. In a letter to William Lloyd GarrisonDouglass wrote "I see much here to remind me of my former condition, and I confess I should be ashamed to lift up my voice against American slavery, but that I know the cause of humanity is one the world over.

He who really and truly feels for the American slave, cannot steel his heart to the woes of others; and he who thinks himself an abolitionist, yet cannot enter into the wrongs of others, has yet to find a true foundation for his anti-slavery faith. He also met and befriended the Irish nationalist and strident abolitionist Daniel O'Connell[ 85 ] [ 86 ] who was to be a great inspiration.

Douglass spent two years in Ireland and Great Britain, lecturing in churches and chapels. His draw was such that some facilities were "crowded to suffocation". Douglass remarked that in England he was treated not "as a color, but as a man". InDouglass met with Thomas Clarksonone of the last living British abolitionistswho had persuaded Parliament to abolish slavery in Great Britain's colonies.

It commemorates his speech there on October 9, Douglass spent time in Scotland and was appointed "Scotland's Antislavery agent". He considered the city of Edinburgh to be elegant, grand and very welcoming. Maps of the places in the city that were important to his stay are held by the National Library of Scotland. After returning to the U. Douglass also participated in the Underground Railroad.

He and his wife provided lodging and resources in their home to more than four hundred fugitive slaves. Douglass also soon split with Garrison, whom he found unwilling to support actions against American slavery. Garrison had burned copies of the Constitution to express his opinion. However, Lysander Spooner published The Unconstitutionality of Slaverywhich examined the United States Constitution as an antislavery document.

Douglass's change of opinion about the Constitution and his splitting from Garrison around became one of the abolitionist movement's most notable divisions. Douglass angered Garrison by saying that the Constitution could and should be used as an instrument in the fight against slavery. In that speech, he said, "When I escaped from slavery, and was introduced to the Garrisonians, I adopted very many of their opinions I was young, had read but little, and naturally took some things on trust.

Subsequent reading and experience", however, "brought me to other conclusions". He now believed that "dissolution of the American Union", which Garrison advocated, "would place the slave system more exclusively frederick douglass mini biography the control of the slaveholding States Garrison and his friends tell us that while in the Union we are responsible for slavery I deny that going out of the Union would free us from that responsibility The American people in the Northern States have helped to enslave the black people.

Their duty will not be done till they give them back their plundered rights. In Septemberon the tenth anniversary of his escape, Douglass published an open letter addressed to his former master, Thomas Auld, berating him for his conduct, and inquiring after members of his family still held by Auld. At one point he is the proud parent, describing his improved circumstances and the progress of his own four young children.

But then he dramatically shifts tone:. It is then that my feelings rise above my control. The grim horrors of slavery rise in all their ghastly terror before me, the wails of millions pierce my heart, and chill my blood. I remember the chain, the gag, the bloody whip, the deathlike gloom overshadowing the broken spirit of the fettered bondman, the appalling liability of his being torn away from wife and children, and sold like a beast in the market.

In a graphic passage, Douglass asked Auld how he would feel if Douglass had come to take away his daughter Amanda into slavery, treating her the way he and members of his family had been treated by Auld. Indeed, I should esteem it a privilege, to set you an example as to how mankind ought to treat each other.

Frederick douglass mini biography: Frederick Douglass was an American social

InDouglass was the only black person to attend the Seneca Falls Conventionthe first women's rights convention, in upstate New York. He suggested that the world would be a better place if women were involved in the political sphere :. In this denial of the right to participate in government, not merely the degradation of woman and the perpetuation of a great injustice happens, but the maiming and repudiation of one-half of the moral and intellectual power of the government of the world.

After Douglass's powerful words, the attendees passed the resolution. He recalled the "marked ability and dignity" of the proceedings, and briefly conveyed several arguments of the convention and feminist thought at the time. On the first count, Douglass acknowledged the "decorum" of the participants in the face of disagreement.

In the remainder, he discussed the primary document that emerged from the conference, a Declaration of Sentiments, and the "infant" feminist cause. He criticized opponents of women's rights: "A discussion of the rights of animals would be regarded with far more complacency by many of what are called the wise and the good of our land, than would be a discussion of the rights of woman.

His opinion as the editor of a prominent newspaper carried weight, and he stated the position of the North Star explicitly: "We hold woman to be justly entitled to all we claim for man. After the Civil Warwhen the 15th Amendment giving black men the right to vote was being debated, Douglass split with the Stanton-led faction of the women's rights movement.

Douglass supported the amendment, which would grant suffrage to black men.

Frederick douglass mini biography: › › Social Movements & Trends.

Stanton opposed the 15th Amendment because it limited the expansion of suffrage to black men; she predicted its passage would delay for decades the cause for women's right to vote. Stanton argued that American women and black men should band together to fight for universal suffrageand opposed any bill that split the issues. Stanton wanted to attach women's suffrage to that of black men so that her cause would be carried to success.

Douglass thought such a strategy was too risky, that there was barely enough support for black men's suffrage. He feared that linking the cause of women's suffrage to that of black men would result in failure for both. Douglass argued that white women, already empowered by their social connections to fathers, husbands, and brothers, at least vicariously had the vote.

Black women, he believed, would have the same degree of empowerment as white women once black men had the vote. InDouglass was elected the vice president of the American League of Colored Laborersthe first black labor union in the United States, which he had also helped found. Douglass was one of five people whose names were attached to the address of the convention to the people of the United States published under the title, The Claims of Our Common Cause.

Wagonerand George Boyer Vashon. Like many abolitionists, Douglass believed that education would be crucial for African Americans to improve their lives; he was an early advocate for school desegregation. In the s, Douglass observed that New York's facilities and instruction for African American children were vastly inferior to those for European Americans.

Douglass called for court action to open all schools to all children. He said that full inclusion within the educational system was a more pressing need for African Americans than political issues such as suffrage. Brown penned his Provisional Constitution during his two-week stay with Douglass. Also staying with Douglass for over a year was Shields Greena fugitive slave whom Douglass was helping, as he often did.

Shortly before the raid, Douglass, taking Green with him, travelled from Rochester, via New York City, to Chambersburg, PennsylvaniaBrown's communications headquarters. He was recognized there by black people, who asked him for a lecture. Douglass agreed, although he said his only topic was slavery. Green joined him on the stage; Brown, incognitosat in the audience.

A white reporter, referring to "Nigger Democracy", called it a "flaming address" by "the notorious Negro Orator". There, in an abandoned stone quarry for secrecy, Douglass and Green met with Brown and John Henri Kagito discuss the raid. After discussions lasting, as Douglass put it, "a day and a night", he disappointed Brown by declining to join him, considering the mission suicidal.

Anne Brown said that Green told her that Douglass promised to pay him on his return, but David Blight called this "much more ex post facto bitterness than reality". Almost all that is known about this incident comes from Douglass. It is clear that it was of immense importance to him, both as a turning point in his life—not accompanying John Brown—and its importance in his public image.

The meeting was not revealed by Douglass for 20 years. He first disclosed it in his speech on John Brown at Storer College intrying unsuccessfully to raise money to support a John Brown professorship at Storer, to be held by a black man. He again referred to it stunningly in his last Autobiography. After the raid, which took place between October 16 and 18,Douglass was accused both of supporting Brown and of not supporting him enough.

Douglass sailed back from England the following month, traveling through Canada to avoid detection. Years later, inDouglass shared a stage at Storer College in Harpers Ferry with Andrew Hunterthe prosecutor who secured Brown's conviction and execution. Hunter congratulated Douglass. Douglass considered photography very important in ending slavery and racism, and believed that the camera would not lie, even in the hands of a racist white person, as photographs were an excellent counter to many racist caricatures, particularly in blackface minstrelsy.

He was the most photographed American of the 19th century, consciously using photography to advance his political views. He tended to look directly into the camera and confront the viewer with a stern look. By the time of the Civil War, Douglass was one of the most famous black men in the country, known for his orations on the condition of the black race and on other issues such as women's rights.

His eloquence gathered crowds at every location. His reception by leaders in England and Ireland added to his stature. He had been seriously proposed for the congressional seat of his friend and supporter Gerrit Smithwho declined to run again after his term ended in Douglass and the abolitionists argued that because the aim of the Civil War was to end slavery, African Americans should be allowed to engage in the fight for their freedom.

Douglass publicized this view in his newspapers and several speeches. After Lincoln had finally allowed black soldiers to serve in the Union army, Douglass helped the recruitment efforts, publishing his famous broadside Men of Color to Arms! With the North no longer obliged to return slaves to their owners in the South, Douglass fought for equality for his people.

Douglass conferred with President Abraham Lincoln in on the treatment of black soldiers [ ] and on plans to move liberated slaves out of the South. President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamationwhich took effect on January 1,declared the freedom of all slaves in Confederate-held territory. Slaves in Union-held areas were not covered because the proclamation was permissible under the Constitution only as a war measure; they were freed with the adoption of the 13th Amendment on December 6, Douglass described the spirit of those awaiting the proclamation: "We were waiting and listening as for a bolt from the sky During the U.

Presidential Election ofDouglass supported John C. Douglass was disappointed that President Lincoln did not publicly endorse suffrage for black freedmen. Douglass believed that since African American men were fighting for the Union in the American Civil War, they deserved the right to vote. The postwar ratification of the 13th Amendmenton December 6,outlawed slavery, "except as a punishment for crime.

The 15th Amendment protected all citizens from being discriminated against in voting because of race. He spoke frankly about the complex legacy of Lincoln, noting what he perceived as both positive and negative attributes of the late President. Lincoln was neither our man or our model". Lincoln shared the prejudices of his white fellow-countrymen against the Negro, it is hardly necessary to say that in his heart of hearts he loathed and hated slavery Lincoln seemed tardy, cold, dull, and indifferent; but measuring him by the sentiment of his country, a sentiment he was bound as a statesman to consult, he was swift, zealous, radical, and determined.

The crowd, roused by his speech, gave Douglass a standing ovation. Lincoln's widow Mary Lincoln supposedly gave Lincoln's favorite walking-stick to Douglass in appreciation. That walking stick still rests in his final residence, "Cedar Hill" in Washington, D. After delivering the speech, Douglass immediately wrote to the National Republican newspaper in Washington which published his letter five days later, on April 19criticizing the statue's design and suggesting the park could be improved by more dignified monuments of free black people.

Due to his prominence and activism during the war, Douglass received several political appointments. He served as president of the Reconstruction -era Freedman's Savings Bank. Meanwhile, white insurgents had quickly arisen in the South after the war, organizing first as secret vigilante groups, including the Ku Klux Klan. Armed frederick douglass mini biography took different forms.

Powerful paramilitary groups included the White League and the Red Shirtsboth active during the s in the Deep South. They operated as "the military arm of the Democratic Party", turning out Republican officeholders and disrupting elections. They enforced this by a combination of violence, late 19th-century laws imposing segregation and a concerted effort to disfranchise African Americans.

New labor and criminal laws also limited their freedom. To combat these efforts, Douglass supported the presidential campaign of Ulysses S. Grant in InDouglass started his last newspaper, the New National Eraattempting to hold his country to its commitment to equality. Grant believed annexation would help relieve the violent situation in the South by allowing African Americans their own state.

Douglass and the commission favored annexation, but Congress remained opposed to annexation. Douglass criticized Senator Charles Sumnerwho opposed annexation, stating that if Sumner continued to oppose annexation he would "regard him as the worst foe the colored race has on this continent. Grant used their provisions vigorously, suspending habeas corpus in South Carolina and sending troops there and into other states.

Under his leadership over 5, arrests were made. Grant's vigor in disrupting the Klan made him unpopular among many whites but earned praise from Douglass. A Douglass associate wrote that African Americans "will ever cherish a grateful remembrance of [Grant's] name, fame and great services. He was nominated without his knowledge. Douglass neither campaigned for the ticket nor acknowledged that he had been nominated.

However, in early June of that year, Douglass's third Rochester home, on South Avenue, burned down; arson was suspected. There was extensive damage to the house, its furnishings, and the grounds; in addition, sixteen volumes of the North Star and Frederick Douglass' Paper were lost. Douglass then moved to Washington, D. Throughout the Reconstruction era, Douglass continued speaking, emphasizing the importance of work, voting rights and actual exercise of suffrage.

His speeches for the twenty-five years following the war emphasized work to counter the racism that was then prevalent in unions. A man's rights rest in three boxes. From there he traveled through Delawareanother slave state, before arriving in New York and the safe house of abolitionist David Ruggles. She joined him, and the two were married in September They had five children together.

In New Bedford, Douglass began attending meetings of the abolitionist movement. During these meetings, he was exposed to the writings of abolitionist and journalist William Lloyd Garrison. The two men eventually met when both were asked to speak at an abolitionist meeting, during which Douglass shared his story of slavery and escape. It was Garrison who encouraged Douglass to become a speaker and leader in the abolitionist movement.

Douglass was physically assaulted several times during the tour by those opposed to the abolitionist movement. The injuries never fully healed, and he never regained full use of his hand. Two years later, Douglass published the first and most famous of his autobiographies, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave. 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 Famineor the Great Hunger. While overseas, he was impressed by the frederick douglass mini biography freedom he had as a man of color, compared to what he had experienced in the United States. In addition to teaching himself how to read and write he also practiced the art of oratory.

He was discovered by William Coffin while Douglass was speaking in church. Coffin introduced him to William Lloyd Garrison who became his mentor and set to start his abolitionist career. Douglass was offered a job as an agent for the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society. Douglass, with the support of Garrison, published his first, of three autobiographiesNarrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass.

At a young age, Douglass was selected to live in the home of the plantation owners, one of whom may have been his father. His mother, who was an intermittent presence in his life, died when he was around When Auld forbade his wife to offer more lessons, Douglass continued to learn from frederick douglass mini biography children and others in the neighborhood.

He read newspapers avidly and sought out political writing and literature as much as possible. In later years, Douglass credited The Columbian Orator with clarifying and defining his views on human rights. Douglass shared his newfound knowledge with other enslaved people. Hired out to William Freeland, he taught other slaves on the plantation to read the New Testament at a weekly church service.

Interest was so great that in any week, more than 40 slaves would attend lessons. Although Freeland did not interfere with the lessons, other local slave owners were less understanding. Armed with clubs and stones, they dispersed the congregation permanently. With Douglass moving between the Aulds, he was later made to work for Edward Covey, who had a reputation as a "slave-breaker.

Eventually, however, Douglass fought back, in a scene rendered powerfully in his first autobiography. After losing a physical confrontation with Douglass, Covey never beat him again. Douglass tried to escape from slavery twice before he finally succeeded. Douglass married Anna Murray, a free Black woman, on September 15, Douglass had fallen in love with Murray, who assisted him in his final attempt to escape slavery in Baltimore.

Murray had provided him with some of her savings and a sailor's uniform. He carried identification papers obtained from a free Black seaman. Douglass made his way to the safe house of abolitionist David Ruggles in New York in less than 24 hours. Anna and Frederick then settled in New Bedford, Massachusetts, which had a thriving free Black community.