Frederick Douglass

Welcome to Did You Know a video series about Massachusetts where we take a look at interesting tidbits of state history. Each video will cover a different part of Massachusetts history and culture. Today, our topic is prominent abolitionist Frederick Douglass. Did you know that Douglass fought against slavery, for women's suffrage and for equal rights for all Americans? Let's find out more.

Frederick Douglass was an African-American abolitionist who escaped slavery and went on to fight for discrimination. He was known for his powerful speeches and political agitation to bring about equal rights for both before and after the Civil War. Today, we will learn about Frederick Douglass. A quote of Frederick Douglass is featured in the Massachusetts State Senate today. Truth Justice, liberty and humanity will ultimately prevail.

The quote comes from a speech he made at the Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church in Washington, D.C., on October 21st, 1891 of his last public address. The idea for adding a quote from a notable figure in Massachusetts was proposed by former acting Senate President Harry Chandler, who assembled a committee of senators, cultural institutions, staff and other officials to consider public suggestions for state historical figures to depict the scenario towards increasing the diversity of historic figures honored in the Senate.

After a lengthy review process, Frederick Douglass was selected and his, quote, in six inch tall bond sweaters was placed on the back wall of the Senate in 2018 to celebrate his 200th birthday. The quote was dedicated in January 2019, when the renovated Senate chamber was open to the public. Frederick Douglass, originally named Fredricka Augustus William Bailey, was born into slavery around February 1818 on the plantation in Talbot County, Maryland.

Frederick mother was sold to a plantation 12 miles away when Frederick was in infancy, and he lived with his maternal grandparents, Betsy and Isaac, until he was six years old. He was then moved to Baltimore and put the care of the all family. Two women in the family, Lucretia and Sophia, all treating Frederick well. And Sophia even taught Frederick literacy when he was 12 years old.

However, after Sophia's husband, Hugh, disapproved of the teaching, Sophia stopped these lessons. But Frederick continued to teach himself to read and write secretly, using whatever books and newspapers he could find. Atlantic also worked to teach fellow slaves to read and established a Sunday school group to teach reading, using the New Testament. After six months, angry plantation owners forcibly broke up The group, fearing literate slaves would rebel.

In 1823, Frederick was sent to work on the coastal Maryland farm of Edward Cove, a notoriously harsh owner who beat Frederick continuously. Frederick rebelled against his treatment when he was 16 and beat Coby in a fight after which Coby never beat him again. In 1837, Frederick met Anna marie, a free black woman in Baltimore, and began planning to escape slavery and join him in the north.

Frederick escaped slavery on September 3rd, 1838, traveling by train and steamship from Baltimore to New York City and adjoined him in New York. And they were married on September 15th, 1838. The couple had five children, four of whom live to adulthood. Frederick, Indiana, moved to New Bedford, Massachusetts, where they stayed with Nathan and Polly Johnson, a couple whose house was a stop on the Underground Railroad.

Frederick enjoyed his last name to Douglass after a character in the poem The Lady of the Lake, written by Walter Scott, a Scottish poet, playwright and historian. Shortly after arriving in New Bedford, Douglass volunteered to put away coal for a local woman, Mrs. a fry in Peabody, and was paid two half dollars for his work. The first money Douglass earned as a free man.

Douglass soon joined the local African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, where he became a preacher and was inspired by the church's large community of free. Blacks were educated and politically active. The Douglass's first experiences of freedom in Massachusetts had a large impact on them and led FERTIG to imagine what freedom would mean for their slave westward. Douglass also became a supporter of William Lloyd Garrison's anti-slavery newspaper, The Liberator, and joined the American Antis Slavery Society.

While using his position in the AME Church to make sermons calling for an end to slavery in 1841, the local Baker, William Coffin, heard Douglass speak and encouraged him to attend the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society's Convention on Nantucket. That year, Douglass made his first public speech against slavery at the convention, launching his career as an anti-slavery lecturer and public speaker.

In 1845, Douglass published his autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass in American Slaves. It was an instant bestseller with some readers amazed that a former slave could write so eloquently. The publicity, however, brought with it some danger, as Douglass's friends feared his former owners, the allies, would try to reclaim him as their slaves. Douglass was encouraged to visit Ireland to avoid them, and he failed in 1845, leaving his wife and a behind with his small children.

Douglass was amazed that in Ireland he was treated equal to whites and spent two years for Great Britain in Ireland while continuing his speaking career. His supporters raised funds and bought Douglass his freedom in 1846, and Douglass returned to the United States in 1847 to continue his fight against slavery. That year, he began publishing his own anti-slavery newspaper, The North Star, whose motto was White is of no sex.

Truth is of no color. God is the father of us all, and we are all blessed. His house also served as a stop on the Underground Railroad, and he and his wife helped over 400 former slaves escape North. In 1848, Douglass was the only African-American to attend the Seneca Falls Convention, a prominent meeting of women working towards women's suffrage.

Douglass supported voting rights for women and made a powerful speech at the convention that encouraged participants to pass a resolution in favor of women's suffrage. Douglas also campaigned for the voting rights of African-American men and women, as well as equal rights for all minority groups, including Native Americans and immigrants. In 1851, Douglass merged the North Star with another anti-slavery newspaper to form Frederick Douglass paper and continued publishing articles against slavery.

He continued to speak around the country, and in 1852, he gave one of his most famous speeches, white to a slave as the 4th of July. This speech is read every year at public spaces across Massachusetts, including at the Massachusetts Statehouse. These readings, sponsored by mass Humanities, keep Douglass's ideals of equal rights for all alive and relevant today.

He also fought for desegregating public schools and met with radical abolitionist John Brown. Although Douglass disagreed with Brown's plans to start an armed slave uprising in the South, fearing that slaves attacking federal property wouldn't wage the American public. After John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry, Virginia Douglass fled to Canada to avoid being arrested as a coconspirator and continued on to England, where he engaged in a plain speaking tour.

He returned to the States in April 1860, after almost a year abroad. Douglass was the most famous African-American man in the United States by the 1860s and during the Civil War, Douglass argued for allowing African-American men to fight in the Army while supporting the Emancipation Proclamation, an executive order that freed all slaves in the Confederacy and went into effect on January 1st, 1863.

Douglass also helped recruit soldiers for the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, the first African-American regiment in the country. And two of his sons, Charles and Louis, served in the regiment. In 1865, the 13th 14th and 15th Amendment of the Constitution were ratified, which outlawed slavery, provided equal protection under U.S. law and prohibited voter discrimination because of whites. However, Douglass spoke with some suffragists, including Elizabeth Cady Stanton, over his approval of the 15th Amendment, and Stanton's group favored a law that allowed both women and black men to vote.

While Douglass thought it was too risky to try to get both groups the right to vote at once, as he believed such a bill would lack support during the Reconstruction era, Douglass spoke out against the rise of the Ku Klux Klan and other racist organizations in the South and supported President Ulysses S Gwinn Civil Rights Act of 1871, and the second and third enforcement Acts that sent troops to Southern states to uphold the newly passed constitutional amendments.

In 1872, he was nominated as vice president on the Equal Rights Party presidential ticket, becoming the first African-American man nominated for U.S. vice president. That June Douglass is home in Rochester, New York, was burned down, and he moved to Washington, D.C., with his family, where he became U.S. marshal for Washington, D.C. in 1874. In 1877, Douglass reconciled with his former owner, Thomas Auld, on all deathbed.

And in 1881, he published another biography, The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass. In 1889, Douglass was appointed as consul general to the Republic of Haiti and chargé d'affaires for Santo Domingo by President Benjamin Harrison, and served two years in the position to the end of his life. Douglass continued to tour the United States and Europe, speaking out against discrimination and for equal rights.

Frederick Douglass died on February 20th, 1895. But is known today as a prominent activist. He is buried in Rochester, New York, where he lived the longest part of his life. And Douglass is housed in Washington, D.C., Cedar Hill stands as a national historic site today where visitors can learn about him. Thanks for joining me to learn about Frederick Douglass.

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