Frederick Douglass, 1818-1895

Frederick Douglass, arguably the most important Negro leader of the 19th century, was born Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey, in Talbot County, on Maryland's Eastern Shore in 1818. The son of a slave woman and, presumably, her white master. When Douglass escaped from slavery at the age of 20, he adopted a new surname from the hero of Sir Walter Scott's The Lady of the Lake. Douglass’ life, captured in self-published autobiographies, established some of the greatest contributions to southern culture on written record. Etched as straightforward abolitionist propaganda and individual disclosure, they are commonly respected as supreme models of the slave narrative tradition and as archetypal American autobiography.  These works; Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave , was published in 1845; in 1855, My Bondage and My Freedom was released; and after the Civil War, he drafted and published Life and Times of Frederick Douglass in 1881, which he revised in 1892.

Douglass's public life spanned from his work as an abolitionist in the early 1840s to his condemnation of Jim Crow segregation in the 1890s. Douglass spent most of his activist life in Rochester, N.Y., where he edited some of the most influential Negro newspapers of the 19th century.   The North Star (1847-51), Frederick Douglass' Paper (1851-58), and The Douglass Monthly (1859-63) were.  Douglass realized international notoriety as an orator and writer, and attained widespread acclaim that few contemporaries could match.  Douglass delivered powerful rhetoric that administered necessary and revolutionary amplification of the anti-slavery movement, while providing an unconquerable voice of hope for his people.  In delivering his ideals on America’s participation in and perpetration and expansion of the slavery paradigm, Douglass relished the opportunity to struggle against and overcome systemic mechanisms whereby Africans were oppressed and castigated from the family of man.

In 1861, during the Civil War, Douglass represented the finest example of morality, and served as the anchor of the struggle to stamp out the inhumanity of slavery.  Douglass contributed key components to the cerebral conventions of military nationalism, due to the position that many Americans, from The North and South, interpreted Civil War rationale.  Reconstruction saw Douglass's leadership wane as he traveled and lectured extensively racial issues, after which he moved to Washington, D.C., where he edited the newspaper The New National Era and became president of the short-lived Freedmen's Bank.

A tenacious Republican, Douglass was appointed marshall (1877-81) and recorder of deeds (1881-86) for the District of Columbia, and chargé d'affaires for Santo Domingo and minister to Haiti (1889-91).  Douglass fathered five children by his first wife Anna Murray, a free woman from Baltimore who followed him from out of slavery in 1838.  After Anna’s death in 1882, the 63-year-old Douglass married Helen Pitts, his white former secretary.   Through the racial taunts from both Negro and White collectives, Helen devoted the last years of her life to planning and establishing the Frederick Douglass Memorial and Historical Association.  Her efforts were dedicated to maintaining Cedar Hill as a lasting memorial to the memory of Frederick Douglass and his work. 

Douglass’s name and labors represent the resolute anti-slavery banners of his age, and remain uniquely American icons. His life will always speak profoundly to the dilemma of Black African life in America.   Frederick Douglass died of heart failure in February of 1895, but not before blossoming into a warrior for social justice and universal equality.