131 Facts About Frederick Douglass

1.

Frederick Douglass actively supported women's suffrage, and he held several public offices.

2.

Frederick Douglass believed in dialogue and in making alliances across racial and ideological divides, as well as in the liberal values of the US Constitution.

3.

However, based on the extant records of Douglass's former owner, Aaron Anthony, historian Dickson J Preston determined that Douglass was born in February 1818.

4.

Frederick Douglass was of mixed race, which likely included Native American and African on his mother's side, as well as European.

5.

Frederick Douglass later wrote of his earliest times with his mother:.

6.

Frederick Douglass's mother remained on the plantation about 12 miles away, only visiting Frederick Douglass a few times before her death when he was 7 years old.

7.

Frederick Douglass was a slave and had no one to care for him.

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8.

Frederick Douglass slept on a dirt floor in a hovel, and in cold weather would crawl into a meal bag head foremost and leave his feet in the ashes to keep them warm.

9.

Frederick Douglass became Presidential Elector, United States Marshal, United States Recorder, United States diplomat, and accumulated some wealth.

10.

Frederick Douglass wore broadcloth and didn't have to divide crumbs with the dogs under the table.

11.

At the age of 6, Frederick Douglass was separated from his grandparents and moved to the Wye House plantation, where Aaron Anthony worked as overseer.

12.

When Frederick Douglass was about 12, Sophia Auld began teaching him the alphabet.

13.

Frederick Douglass later referred to this as the "first decidedly antislavery lecture" he had ever heard.

14.

Frederick Douglass stopped teaching him altogether and hid all potential reading materials, including her Bible, from him.

15.

Frederick Douglass continued, secretly, to teach himself to read and write.

16.

In later years, Frederick Douglass credited The Columbian Orator, an anthology that he discovered at about age 12, with clarifying and defining his views on freedom and human rights.

17.

Frederick Douglass later learned that his mother had been literate, about which he would later declare:.

18.

Frederick Douglass whipped Douglass so frequently that his wounds had little time to heal.

19.

Frederick Douglass later said the frequent whippings broke his body, soul, and spirit.

20.

The 16-year-old Frederick Douglass finally rebelled against the beatings and fought back.

21.

Frederick Douglass first tried to escape from Freeland, who had hired him from his owner, but was unsuccessful.

22.

In 1837, Frederick Douglass met and fell in love with Anna Murray, a free black woman in Baltimore about five years his senior.

23.

On September 3,1838, Frederick Douglass successfully escaped by boarding a northbound train of the Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad.

24.

Frederick Douglass reached Havre de Grace, Maryland, in Harford County, in the northeast corner of the state, along the southwest shore of the Susquehanna River, which flowed into the Chesapeake Bay.

25.

Frederick Douglass crossed the wide Susquehanna River by the railroad's steam-ferry at Havre de Grace to Perryville on the opposite shore, in Cecil County, then continued by train across the state line to Wilmington, Delaware, a large port at the head of the Delaware Bay.

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26.

Frederick Douglass continued to the safe house of abolitionist David Ruggles in New York City.

27.

Frederick Douglass later wrote of his arrival in New York City:.

28.

Once Frederick Douglass had arrived, he sent for Murray to follow him north to New York.

29.

Frederick Douglass brought the basics for them to set up a home.

30.

Frederick Douglass had grown up using his mother's surname of Bailey; after escaping slavery he had changed his surname first to Stanley and then to Johnson.

31.

Nathan suggested "Frederick Douglass", after having read the poem The Lady of the Lake by Walter Scott, in which two of the principal characters have the surname "Douglas".

32.

Frederick Douglass thought of joining a white Methodist Church, but was disappointed, from the beginning, upon finding that it was segregated.

33.

Frederick Douglass became a licensed preacher in 1839, which helped him to hone his oratorical skills.

34.

In 1840, Frederick Douglass delivered a speech in Elmira, New York, then a station on the Underground Railroad, in which a black congregation would form years later, becoming the region's largest church by 1940.

35.

Frederick Douglass joined several organizations in New Bedford and regularly attended abolitionist meetings.

36.

Frederick Douglass subscribed to William Lloyd Garrison's weekly newspaper, The Liberator.

37.

Garrison was likewise impressed with Frederick Douglass and had written about his anti-colonization stance in The Liberator as early as 1839.

38.

Frederick Douglass first heard Garrison speak in 1841, at a lecture that Garrison gave in Liberty Hall, New Bedford.

39.

In 1843, Frederick Douglass 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.

40.

Frederick Douglass's hand was broken in the attack; it healed improperly and bothered him for the rest of his life.

41.

Frederick Douglass published three autobiographies during his lifetime, each time expanding on the previous one.

42.

Frederick Douglass set sail on the Cambria for Liverpool, England, on August 16,1845.

43.

Frederick Douglass traveled in Ireland as the Great Famine was beginning.

44.

Still, Frederick Douglass was astounded by the extreme levels of poverty he encountered, much of it reminding him of his experiences in slavery.

45.

Frederick Douglass met and befriended the Irish nationalist and strident abolitionist Daniel O'Connell, who was to be a great inspiration.

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46.

Frederick Douglass spent two years in Ireland and Great Britain, lecturing in churches and chapels.

47.

Frederick Douglass's draw was such that some facilities were "crowded to suffocation".

48.

One example was his hugely popular London Reception Speech, which Frederick Douglass delivered in May 1846 at Alexander Fletcher's Finsbury Chapel.

49.

Frederick Douglass remarked that in England he was treated not "as a color, but as a man".

50.

In 1846, Frederick Douglass met with Thomas Clarkson, one of the last living British abolitionists, who had persuaded Parliament to abolish slavery in Great Britain's colonies.

51.

Many supporters tried to encourage Frederick Douglass to remain in England but, with his wife still in Massachusetts and three million of his black brethren in bondage in the United States, he returned to America in the spring of 1847, soon after the death of Daniel O'Connell.

52.

The third plaque adorns Nell Gwynn House, South Kensington in London, at the site of an earlier house where Frederick Douglass stayed with the British abolitionist George Thompson.

53.

Frederick Douglass considered the city of Edinburgh to be elegant, grand and very welcoming.

54.

Originally, Pittsburgh journalist Martin Delany was co-editor but Frederick Douglass didn't feel he brought in enough subscriptions, and they parted ways.

55.

Frederick Douglass angered Garrison by saying that the Constitution could and should be used as an instrument in the fight against slavery.

56.

In September 1848, on the tenth anniversary of his escape, Frederick 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.

57.

In 1848, Frederick Douglass was the only black person to attend the Seneca Falls Convention, the first women's rights convention, in upstate New York.

58.

Frederick Douglass stood and spoke eloquently in favor of women's suffrage; he said that he could not accept the right to vote as a black man if women could not claim that right.

59.

Frederick Douglass suggested that the world would be a better place if women were involved in the political sphere.

60.

Frederick Douglass recalled the "marked ability and dignity" of the proceedings, and briefly conveyed several arguments of the convention and feminist thought at the time.

61.

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

62.

Frederick Douglass thought such a strategy was too risky, that there was barely enough support for black men's suffrage.

63.

Frederick Douglass feared that linking the cause of women's suffrage to that of black men would result in failure for both.

64.

Frederick Douglass argued that white women, already empowered by their social connections to fathers, husbands, and brothers, at least vicariously had the vote.

65.

Frederick Douglass assured the American women that at no time had he ever argued against women's right to vote.

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66.

On July 5,1852, Frederick Douglass delivered an address in Corinthian Hall at a meeting organized by the Rochester Ladies' Anti-Slavery Society.

67.

Frederick 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.

68.

Frederick Douglass called for court action to open all schools to all children.

69.

Frederick Douglass said that full inclusion within the educational system was a more pressing need for African Americans than political issues such as suffrage.

70.

On March 12,1859, Frederick Douglass met with radical abolitionists John Brown, George DeBaptiste, and others at William Webb's house in Detroit to discuss emancipation.

71.

Frederick Douglass met Brown again when Brown visited his home two months before leading the raid on Harpers Ferry.

72.

Shortly before the raid, Frederick Douglass, taking Green with him, travelled from Rochester, via New York City, to Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, Brown's communications headquarters.

73.

Frederick Douglass was recognized there by black people, who asked him for a lecture.

74.

Frederick Douglass agreed, although he said his only topic was slavery.

75.

Anne Brown said that Green told her that Frederick Douglass promised to pay him on his return, but David Blight called this "much more ex post facto bitterness than reality".

76.

Frederick Douglass first disclosed it in his speech on John Brown at Storer College in 1881, trying unsuccessfully to raise money to support a John Brown professorship at Storer, to be held by a black man.

77.

Frederick Douglass again referred to it stunningly in his last Autobiography.

78.

Frederick Douglass sailed back from England the following month, traveling through Canada to avoid detection.

79.

Years later, in 1881, Frederick Douglass shared a stage at Storer College in Harpers Ferry with Andrew Hunter, the prosecutor who secured Brown's conviction and execution.

80.

Frederick 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.

81.

Frederick Douglass was the most photographed American of the 19th century, consciously using photography to advance his political views.

82.

Frederick Douglass never smiled, specifically so as not to play into the racist caricature of a happy enslaved person.

83.

Frederick Douglass tended to look directly into the camera and confront the viewer with a stern look.

84.

Frederick Douglass described this approach in his last biography, Life and Times of Frederick Douglass:.

85.

Frederick Douglass thought that all men, great and small, bond and free, were sinners in the sight of God: that they were by nature rebels against His government; and that they must repent of their sins, and be reconciled to God through Christ.

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86.

Frederick Douglass was mentored by Rev Charles Lawson, and, early in his activism, he often included biblical allusions and religious metaphors in his speeches.

87.

Frederick Douglass 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".

88.

Sometimes considered a precursor of a non-denominational liberation theology, Frederick Douglass was a deeply spiritual man, as his home continues to show.

89.

Frederick Douglass had been seriously proposed for the congressional seat of his friend and supporter Gerrit Smith, who declined to run again after his term ended in 1854.

90.

Frederick Douglass publicized this view in his newspapers and several speeches.

91.

Frederick Douglass conferred with President Abraham Lincoln in 1863 on the treatment of black soldiers and on plans to move liberated slaves out of the South.

92.

Frederick Douglass was disappointed that President Lincoln did not publicly endorse suffrage for black freedmen.

93.

Frederick Douglass believed that since African-American men were fighting for the Union in the American Civil War, they deserved the right to vote.

94.

Frederick Douglass spoke frankly about Lincoln, noting what he perceived as both positive and negative attributes of the late President.

95.

The crowd, roused by his speech, gave Frederick Douglass a standing ovation.

96.

Frederick Douglass served as president of the Reconstruction-era Freedman's Savings Bank.

97.

In 1870, Frederick Douglass started his last newspaper, the New National Era, attempting to hold his country to its commitment to equality.

98.

In 1872, Frederick Douglass became the first African American nominated for Vice President of the United States, as Victoria Woodhull's running mate on the Equal Rights Party ticket.

99.

Frederick Douglass neither campaigned for the ticket nor acknowledged that he had been nominated.

100.

Frederick Douglass spoke at many colleges around the country, including Bates College in Lewiston, Maine, in 1873.

101.

In 1881, Frederick Douglass delivered at Storer College, in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, a speech praising John Brown and revealing unknown information about their relationship, including their meeting in an abandoned stone quarry near Chambersburg shortly before the raid.

102.

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

103.

Douglass biographer David W Blight concludes that Assing and Douglass "were probably lovers".

104.

Frederick Douglass responded to the criticisms by saying that his first marriage had been to someone the color of his mother, and his second to someone the color of his father.

105.

The Freedman's Savings Bank went bankrupt on June 29,1874, just a few months after Frederick Douglass became its president in late March.

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106.

When Republican Rutherford B Hayes was elected president, he named Douglass as United States Marshal for the District of Columbia, the first person of color to be so named.

107.

Frederick Douglass accepted the appointment, which helped assure his family's financial security.

108.

However, Frederick Douglass believed that no covert racism was implied by the omission and stated that he was always warmly welcomed in presidential circles.

109.

In 1877, Frederick Douglass visited his former enslaver Thomas Auld on his deathbed, and the two men reconciled.

110.

Frederick Douglass had met Auld's daughter, Amanda Auld Sears, some years prior.

111.

Frederick Douglass had requested the meeting and had subsequently attended and cheered one of Douglass's speeches.

112.

Frederick Douglass's father complimented her for reaching out to Douglass.

113.

That same year, Frederick Douglass bought the house that was to be the family's final home in Washington, DC, on a hill above the Anacostia River.

114.

Frederick Douglass continued his speaking engagements and travel, both in the United States and abroad.

115.

Frederick Douglass became known for advocating Irish Home Rule and supported Charles Stewart Parnell in Ireland.

116.

At the 1888 Republican National Convention, Frederick Douglass became the first African American to receive a vote for President of the United States in a major party's roll call vote.

117.

That year, Frederick Douglass spoke at Claflin College, a historically black college in Orangeburg, South Carolina, and the state's oldest such institution.

118.

Frederick Douglass thought the latter resembled the American Colonization Society, which he had opposed in his youth.

119.

In 1892, at an Indianapolis conference convened by Bishop Henry McNeal Turner, Frederick Douglass spoke out against the separatist movements, urging blacks to stick it out.

120.

Frederick Douglass made similar speeches as early as 1879 and was criticized both by fellow leaders and some audiences, who even booed him for this position.

121.

In 1892, Frederick Douglass constructed rental housing for blacks, now known as Frederick Douglass Place, in the Fells Point area of Baltimore.

122.

On February 20,1895, Frederick Douglass attended a meeting of the National Council of Women in Washington, DC During that meeting, he was brought to the platform and received a standing ovation.

123.

Shortly after he returned home, Frederick Douglass died of a massive heart attack.

124.

Frederick Douglass's funeral was held at the Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church.

125.

Frederick Douglass's coffin was transported to Rochester, New York, where he had lived for 25 years, longer than anywhere else in his life.

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126.

Frederick Douglass's body was received in state at City Hall, flags were flown at half mast, and schools adjourned.

127.

Frederick Douglass was buried next to Anna in the Douglass family plot of Mount Hope Cemetery, Rochester's premier memorial park.

128.

Frederick Douglass's grave is, with that of Susan B Anthony, the most visited in the cemetery.

129.

The most influential African American of the nineteenth century, Frederick Douglass made a career of agitating the American conscience.

130.

Frederick Douglass spoke and wrote on behalf of a variety of reform causes: women's rights, temperance, peace, land reform, free public education, and the abolition of capital punishment.

131.

Frederick Douglass understood that the struggle for emancipation and equality demanded forceful, persistent, and unyielding agitation.