what did frederick douglass do

As Douglass' popularity grew, members of the abolition movement believed that his former enslaver would try to have Douglass remanded to Maryland. Although Isaac was free, Betsey was an enslaved woman and was well-respected in the region for her nursing, fishing, and gardening skills, as well as for looking after children whose parents had been sent away. Frederick Douglass died in 1895, leaving behind a rich legacy from enslaved man to a driving force of the abolitionist movement and ambassador to the black republic, Haiti. Read more: William Seale, The President’s House, White House Historical Association, 1986; Henry Chase, "Memorable Visitors: Classic White House Encounters," American Visions, February-March, 1995, 26-33. Douglass' mother Harriet was one such person. At their house, Murray hosted enslaved people on the run as part of the Underground Railroad, as well as various abolitionists, including women Douglass was accused of having affairs with. Douglass felt the speech didn't go very well, but it made enough of an impact that he was recruited to join the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society. After escaping from slavery in 1838, Frederick Douglass became one of the most famous abolitionists in the US. When he turned eight years old, his slaveowner hired him out to work as a body servant in Baltimore.

How did Frederick Douglass learn to read? He wrote three autobiographies, established the anti-slavery newspaper The North Star, was a brilliant orator famous for his fiery speeches and was appointed to several important posts in the government. His faith wavered in his darkest moments, but he ultimately maintained his belief in a just God throughout his life. Get access to expert help, study tools, and 1,000,000+ answered questions, Get access to this video and our entire Q&A library. By 1843, Douglass was touring with the American Anti-Slavery Society's Hundred Conventions project throughout Eastern and Midwestern towns in the United States where he shared his story of enslavement and persuaded listeners to be in opposition to the institution of slavery. Ruggles not only let Douglass stay with him, but he helped him make plans to move to New Bedford, Massachusetts, where he might be able to find work caulking whaling ships and where the local community — black and white — would protect him from slave catchers. Douglass and Smith merged their respective newspapers to form Frederick Douglass' Paper, which stayed in circulation until 1860. Question: What did Frederick Douglass do during the Reconstruction era? With the rest of the children, he was put in the "care" of an enslaved woman named Aunt Katy, who starved and beat her charges. When Douglass saw the Freedman's Bank building for the first time, he compared the experience to the way the Queen of Sheba, an African queen, felt upon seeing the riches of King Solomon. Marshal for D.C. (1877-1881), Recorder of Deeds for D.C. (1881-1886), and Minister Resident and Consul General to Haiti (1889-1891). In the years after the Civil War, US troops occupied the Southern states in order to protect the rights now granted to former slaves under the Fourteenth Amendment. But for some reason, he ultimately sent Douglass back to his brother Hugh Auld in Baltimore — unwittingly giving him the chance to try again. She was hired out to neighboring farms and her children would stay with her mother, until they were several years old.

The most photographed man in the 19th century was not a king or an elected world leader. He managed to save up a small amount of money from hiring out his time, and he may have also had financial help from his new fiancée, Anna Murray, a free black woman. During the Civil War he met with President Abraham Lincoln and encouraged African American men to take their freedom by fighting for the Union army. Douglass was also briefly the president of the Freedman's Savings Bank, which was set up after the war to provide loans for freed slaves who wanted to open their own businesses or start their own farms, instead of serving as sharecroppers on the same plantations where they had been held captive. Believing that education was important for Black Americans to move forward in society, Douglass began a campaign to desegregate schools.

I am very much obliged by the receipt of a Copy of your address on the late Hon. The son of an enslaved woman and an unknown white man, Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey was born into slavery in 1818 on Maryland's eastern shore. He convinced the white boys he befriended while running errands to teach him to read and write. This list of works by and about Frederick Douglass will help you brush up on your knowledge. This is the crazy real-life story of Frederick Douglass, the man who refused to let one of the cruelest institutions in American history break his spirit — and who fought to rescue others from its grip. "He was my spiritual father and I loved him intensely [...] He fanned my already intense love of knowledge into a flame by assuring me that I was to be a useful man in the world," Douglass wrote in Life and Times. "After resisting him, I felt as I had never felt before. Earn Transferable Credit & Get your Degree. When possible, she would walk to visit Douglass, but she had to be home in time for roll call in the fields. Stanton and Anthony wanted to work on achieving suffrage for women and black men at the same time, whereas Douglass felt black men more deserved their focus. He served under five presidents as U.S. The couple married on September 15, 1838, and adopted the last name Johnson. Services, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: Summary & Quotes, Working Scholars® Bringing Tuition-Free College to the Community.

In 1855, Douglass met white German journalist Ottilie Assing, and the two supposedly continued an affair by letter until she committed suicide in August 1884. Just a few years later, in 1877, when President Rutherford Hayes appointed him the U.S. On July 5, 1852, abolitionist and orator Frederick Douglass delivered a scathing speech on slavery — its title commonly identified as “What to the slave is the Fourth of July?” — that still echoes today. When did the White House first get plumbing?

Accordingly, he was described by abolitionists in his time as a living counter-example to slaveholders' arguments that slaves lacked the intellectual cap… In his speech, Douglass argued that women should be involved in politics because "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 the one-half of the moral and intellectual power of the government of the world.". In 1833, when Douglass was around 15 or 16, he was sent south from Baltimore to St. Michael's in Talbot County to live with Thomas Auld. Soon, however, the couple moved to New Bedford, Massachusetts and decided not to keep the last name Johnson but use Douglass instead.

Frederick Douglass worked tirelessly to make sure that emancipation would be one of the war's outcomes. Earn Transferable Credit & Get your Degree.

These positions were among the highest an African American man had been appointed two in the 19th century. It was during this tour that Douglass was emancipated legally from enslavement—his supporters raised money to purchase Douglass' freedom. Covey forced Douglass to work to the point of exhaustion, with minimal sleep or opportunity to eat, and beat him violently.

He had a difficult family life. Frederick Douglass was a formerly enslaved abolitionist and civil rights activist. There was a great deal of resistance to these changes among southern Democrats, including Lincoln's successor Andrew Johnson who had tried to veto the congressional bills and was nearly removed from office. Femi Lewis is a writer and educator who specializes in African-American history topics, including slavery, abolitionism, and the Harlem Renaissance. In 1872, the Douglasses moved to Washington, D.C. The couple also suffered the death of one child, and in 1872, their house in Rochester, New York, was burned down. As a young woman, Anna Murray helped Frederick Bailey escape from slavery. In 1845, Douglass published his first autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave. One of abolitionist Frederick Douglass' most famous quotes is "If there is no struggle there is no progress." The efforts of the abolitionists bore fruit when Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863 and finally by the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment which abolished slavery in US. He turned to Charles Lawson, a black man who lived nearby, who taught him about Christianity and how to pray, while Douglass helped him improve his reading in return. In Frederick Douglass' speech, "What to the Slave... What is the Thesis of ''My Bondage and My... Frederick Douglass called his new ability to read... Who was Frederick Douglass influenced by? Throughout his life—first as an enslaved Black man and later as an abolitionist and civil rights activist, Douglass worked to end inequality for Black Americans and women.