Douglass, Frederick, 1818-1895

Dates

• Existence: 1818 - 1895

Biographical Note

Abolitionist, civil rights activist, reform journalist, and former fugitive slave, Frederick Douglass is best remembered as an orator and author of the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Written by Himself.

As a young slave, Douglass taught himself to read and organized secret schools for slaves, though these were discovered and broken up by a mob of local Whites. His wife-to-be, Anna Murray, encouraged and facilitated his escape from slavery. They settled in New Bedford, Massachusetts. Douglass' remarks at an 1841 convention of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society brought him to the attention of William Lloyd Garrison and other leading abolitionists. Douglass then worked as an antislavery lectured under the auspices of the Society.

After the publication of the Narrative, his popularity grew. He lectured in Europe to enthusiastic audiences. In 1847, Douglass moved his family to Rochester, New York, where he launched his antislavery and reform journal, North Star. Douglass' growing independence also signaled his move away from Garrisonian antislavery rhetoric. He also began exploring the possibilities of abolitionist violence. His interest in violence appears in his 1852 novella, The Heroic Slave, and he was involved in planning and raising funds for John Brown's 1859 raid at Harpers Ferry.

During the Civil War, Douglass pressed President Lincoln to make emancipation a goal of the war and to allow black enlistment in the Union army. Douglass served as a recruiter for the Massachusetts Fifty-fourth Infantry. After the war, Douglass became a vocal critic of President Andrew Johnson because of his unwillingness to support full suffrage rights for African American men.

In 1872, an arson fire destroyed Douglass' Rochester home, and his family moved to Washington, DC. Douglass was named president of the Freedman's Savings Bank, and he purchased the publication New National Era. His wife, Anna, died in 1882, and he married Helen Pitts, his White former secretary and a abolitionist, in 1883. He was appointed the United States minister to Haiti from 1889 until he resigned in disgust in 1891. Douglass appealed to Harrison for an antilynching law and used his position as the only African American official at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition to bring that issue to an international audience. Douglass died at his Washington estate, Cedar Hill, in 1895.

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