FREDERICK DOUGLAS
1893-1961

Douglass, Frederick (b. February 1818?, Talbot County, Md.; d. February 20, 1895, Washington, D.C.), the principal nineteenth-century African American spokesperson, abolitionist, reformer, author, and orator.

The Historical Significance of Frederick Douglass

Frederick Douglass was more than a great African American leader; he was, in the words of his biographer William S. McFeely, "one of the giants of nineteenth-century America." He was a man driven by his anger at injustice, McFeely observed, a man who "never ran away from anything," except the bondage of slavery. Even in that, he took flight not simply to escape but to engage: Upon gaining his freedom, the former slave turned in his tracks and confronted the institution head-on.

Douglass had a prominent role in nineteenth-century reform, not only through his abolitionism but also in his support for women's rights and black suffrage. Unlike many of his contemporaries, he stayed true to his principles, remaining steadfast in his commitment to integration and civil rights. Douglass was militant but never a separatist. He rejected the nationalist rhetoric and latter-day conservatism of black abolitionist Martin R. Delany as well as the accommodationism of Booker T. Washington.

His sense of cadence, flair for the dramatic, and taut narrative style give the best of his writing a lean, modern feel. His first autobiography is the archetype of that uniquely American genre of slave narratives as well as a literary masterpiece. Beyond its inherent drama — the account of a young slave whose growing awareness of his bondage compels him to make a successful bid for freedom — the Narrative tells a story of self-discovery and of a character reinventing himself, perhaps the underlying theme of all American and African American literature.

Douglass was probably born in February 1818. The son of a slave named Harriet Bailey and an unknown father rumored to be his master, Douglass was first known as Frederick Bailey. He later viewed the uncertainties surrounding his birth and parentage as the direct result — and particular crime — of slavery. He was raised by his grandparents, Betsy and Isaac Bailey, and at first had little direct contact with the institution of slavery. Isaac Bailey was a free black; Betsy was owned by Aaron Anthony, a slaveholder who also managed the plantation and slaves of the more wealthy Colonel Edward Lloyd.

With several of Covey's slaves, Frederick tried to escape, but the group was betrayed and jailed. As the leader, Frederick faced sale to the Deep South, notorious for the sometimes deadly harshness of its plantations. But Thomas Auld intervened, promising that if Frederick behaved himself he would be freed when he turned 25. Auld also allowed him to return to Baltimore, where he was apprenticed in the shipbuilding industry. Ironically, some of the ships that Frederick helped to build were slavers, engaged in the clandestine slave trade that continued long after United States law forbade it.

But Frederick could not bear to defer his freedom until he was 25. After returning to Baltimore, he had met and fallen in love with a free black woman named Anna Murray, and the two decided to leave the South. Posing as an unemployed seaman, Douglass made his way to freedom in 1838 via that informal network of free blacks, Quakers, and antislavery activists known as the Underground Railroad. Upon reaching New York City, he abandoned his slave name of Bailey and became Frederick Johnson to avoid recognition and capture.

To support his growing family, Douglass found work on New Bedford's wharves. His first child, Rosetta, was born June 24, 1839; she was joined during the next decade by Lewis Henry, Frederick Jr., Charles Redmond, and Annie. Douglass also began participating in local antislavery activities, and his reputation spread quickly. In 1839 he heard a speech by the renowned abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison, who inspired Douglass to become an orator. In his antislavery activism, Douglass began to draw more and more upon his own experience under slavery.

Other Antebellum Reform Activities

The publication of his Narrative and an extended speaking tour in Great Britain furthered Douglass's fame, and he was recognized as the nation's preeminent black leader. But his activism was not confined to African American issues. At the 1848 women's rights convention in Seneca Falls, New York, Douglass was the only male supporter of women's suffrage, and he remained active in the cause throughout his life. In 1847 he moved to Rochester, New York, and began a career as a reform journalist, which would include editing North Star (1847-1851), Frederick Douglass' Paper (1851-1860), Douglass' Monthly (1859-1863), and the New National Era (1870-1874). He remained in Rochester until moving to Washington, D.C., in 1872.

Douglass remained constant in advocating principles of freedom and equality, but gradually he lost his faith in moral persuasion. In 1851 he parted ways with Garrison and the Quaker pacifists. During 1859 Douglass met in secret with white abolitionist John Brown to hear about his planned raid on the federal armory in Harpers Ferry, Virginia. For two days Brown fruitlessly tried to convince Douglass to join him. Douglass's objections were less matters of principle than of tactics. He warned Brown that he would be "going into a perfect steel trap, and that once in he would not get out alive." After Brown's raid, Douglass faced arrest for his involvement in the plot and was forced to flee the country for several months. When he returned, he was convinced that the problem of slavery would not be resolved short of war. Events soon bore him out.

When the Civil War began, Douglass struggled to broaden its aims. At the outset, President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed that the war was being fought simply to preserve the Union, and that slavery would not be affected. Douglass argued that the president could ennoble the conflict and enlist Northerners' idealism by making it a fight against slavery, and he urged the army to recruit black soldiers. He was successful on both counts. In 1863 Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation (see Thirteenth Amendment and Emancipation Proclamation) both committed the Union against slavery and called for black volunteers, although they would serve in segregated units under the command of white officers. Douglass rejected such segregation and the implication that only whites were fitted for command, but he was tireless in recruiting African American volunteers. He also insisted that the army should provide black volunteers with the same pay, supplies, and treatment given white soldiers.

During the Reconstruction era that followed the war, Douglass watched in frustration as the Republican Party, once a stronghold of reform, embraced the interests of American business and the status quo. In the 1870s, as the inadequate program of Reconstruction drew to an end, the party abandoned any commitment to improving the lot of African Americans in the South. Yet unlike many other black leaders, Douglass remained a loyal Republican as he continued fighting for the causes he believed in, particularly the Fifteenth Amendment, ratified in 1870, which granted black males the vote. In this effort, however, he found himself at odds with former allies in the women's movement who opposed extending suffrage to black men if women were not also included. The result was a longstanding breach between white feminists and black civil rights activists. Yet Douglass himself never ceased in his efforts on behalf of either group.

On the other hand, Douglass seemed to lose heart in the face of the nation's conservatism and deepening segregation. Rather than retire, however, Douglass joined the battle one last time. Through the inspiration of African American journalist and political activist Ida B. Wells, Douglass joined in the emerging antilynching movement. In the 1890s, as the lynching of blacks reached an all-time high, Wells and Douglass struggled to rouse the nation from its complacency.

Contributed By: James Clyde Sellman