Frederick Douglass

By Azalea Bisignano, Eileen Doyle-Samay, and Charlotte Smith

“Right is of no sex – Truth is of no color – God is the Father of us all, and we are all Brethren”

Biography

Born a slave with the name Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey in Talbot County, Maryland in 1818

Father was unknown and mother died when he was 7

Escaped north in 1835 and changed his name to Frederick Douglass

Published the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave in May 1845

Provided the funds to purchase his freedom

Established his own newspaper called the North Star

Biography Cont.Helped the Union Army to recruit black troops during the Civil War

Originally a critic of Lincoln, but became an admirer after the passing of the Emancipation Proclamation

Advisor to several presidents: Lincoln, Hayes, Garfield, Harrison, and Grant

Abolitionist, orator, human rights and women’s rights activist, author, publisher, social reformer, and journalist

At 63, after his first wife died, he married his former white secretary, and became one the most famous examples of the South’s famous mixed racial heritage.

Named “Father of the Civil Rights Movement”

Died at the age of 77 due to heart failure in 1895

Civil Rights: Abolitionist Movement

Goal: “immediate emancipation of all slaves and the end of racial discrimination and segregation”

Partly influenced by the Second Great Awakening

Ideas became increasingly prominent in Northern churches and politics beginning in the 1830s

Slaves helped to escape on the Underground Railroad

Contributed to sectionalism between the North and the South leading up to the Civil War

With the passing of the 15th Amendment which extended male suffrage to African Americans, this movement came to an end

Civil Rights: Women’s Rights

Goal: to make political, social , and economic status of women equal to that of men and establish legislative safeguards against discrimination due to sex

Influential Figures: Elizabeth Cady Stanton: leader of the Women’s Rights Convention at Seneca Falls, New York

Susan B. Anthony: wrote and submitted a proposed right-to-vote amendment to the Constitution in 1878 which was ratified and became the 19th Amendment in 1920

Methods of Reform

Published the North Star – weekly abolitionist newspaper

Advisor to Lincoln—very well respected in the political community

Famous oratorSpoke at conventions

Seneca Falls Council

Main topic was the “self-made man”

Contributions and Effects

Held many important positions in the US governmentMinister to Hati

Advisor to Lincoln

MANY years before other African Americans followed

Father of the Civil Rights Movement

13th, 14th, 15th Ammendments

Emphasized social reform for TRUE EQUALITY

Largely responsible for the passage of the motion to support women’s sufferage

“Right is of no Sex-Truth is of no Color”

Works Cited"Abolitionist Movement." History.com. A&E Television Networks, n.d. Web. 01 Apr. 2013.

"Digital History." Digital History. University of Houston, 2006. Web. 029 Mar. 2013.

"Frederick Douglass." Http://www.whitehousehistory.org/. Th White House Historical Foundation, n.d. Web. 13 Mar. 2013.

"Frederick Douglass (1817-1895)." Mr. Lincoln's White House: An Examination of Washington DC during Abraham Lincoln's Presidency. The Lincoln Institute, n.d. Web. 13 Mar. 2013.

"Frederick Douglass Online Document Exhibit." FNational Underground Railroad Freedom Center. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Mar. 2013.

Mintz, Steven. "Who Was Frederick Douglass?" Digital History. College of Education at the University of Houston, n.d. Web. 13 Mar. 2013.

"Women's Rights Movements." Scholastic Teachers. Scholastic, n.d. Web. 01 Apr. 2013.

Blight, David W. “Frederick Douglass, 1818-1895.” Documenting the American South. http://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/douglass/bio.html. Tues. 02 Apr. 2013

Douglass, Frederick. Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass an American slave. Charlottesville, Va.: University of Virginia Library, 1996. Print.

Douglass, Frederick . "Blessings of Liberty and Education by Frederick Douglass." TeachingAmericanHistory.org -- Free Seminars and Summer Institutes for Social Studies Teachers. TeachingAmericanHistory.org, 3 Sept. 1894. Web. 3 Apr. 2013. <http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/index.asp?document=543>.