Frederick Douglass

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Frederick Douglass
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Frederick Douglass around 1850

Frederick Douglass (* 1817 or 1818 in Talbot County , Maryland ; † February 20, 1895 in Washington, DC ; born Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey ) was a former slave and later abolitionist and writer . He was considered the most influential African American of the 19th century.

Life

Frederick Douglass was born into slavery. He was barely allowed to have contact with his mother, Harriet Bailey. She died when he was about ten years old. He lived with his maternal grandmother, Betty Bailey. Douglass was never certain who his father was. However, in his first autobiography he mentions the rumor that it was the owner of his mother (and thus also his own owner). In 1825 he was sent to Baltimore as a house slave to Hugh Auld, a relative by marriage of his owner. He describes Auld's wife, his mistress, as a “kind and warm-hearted woman” who treated him “in the simplicity of her heart” as “as she understood human beings should treat one another.” Until his master prevented it, she taught him Read and write. Douglass later achieved this goal by socializing and educating white children in Baltimore.

After a first attempt to escape failed, he borrowed a seaman's letter of protection in 1838. With this he managed to escape to freedom; he went to New York. There he changed his name (as is customary with escaped slaves) to Frederick Douglass. On September 15, 1838, eleven days after his arrival in New York, he married Anna Murray, whom he had met in Baltimore and who had come to New York. After Anna died in August 1882, he married the white feminist ( suffragette ) Helen Pitts in January 1884 , which was received with great controversy.

Douglass died suddenly and unexpectedly at the age of 77.

Douglass' work as an abolitionist

Upon request, Frederick Douglass spoke about his experiences in slavery at an abolitionist meeting in Nantucket , Massachusetts in 1840 . With this he laid the foundation stone for his subsequent appearances as a full-time speaker against slavery. He was also active as a writer and published his first book Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave in 1845 .

In 1845 Douglass traveled to Great Britain and Ireland, where he gave lectures on slavery with the abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison , English friends collected money and "ransomed" him from slavery. During this trip he organized a campaign with Scottish abolitionists against the Free Church of Scotland over their decision to accept funds from slave owners. The resulting public sensation also forced the founding conference of the Evangelical Alliance , which took place in London in 1846, to take up the subject of slavery, which resulted in a profound split in the conference. Thereupon Douglass criticized in a speech given in London to the Anti-Slavery League ("Slavery in the Pulpit of the Evangelical Alliance") that although slave owners were invited to the conference of the Evangelical Alliance , but no Quakers , who are strong in the fight against the Engaged in slavery. He also pointed to the relationship between slavery and Christianity in the US, complaining that the churches are the strongest allies of the slavery system in the southern US.

In the following years he participated, among other things, in 1848 as the only African American man in the assembly for the equality of women in Seneca Falls and in 1863 recruited black soldiers for the army of the northern states . In 1864 he had his second audience with Abraham Lincoln , where he campaigned for equal rights for black soldiers in the army. In 1870 he was the keynote speaker at the ratification celebrations for the 15th Amendment . In 1872 he was nominated in absentia by the Equal Rights Party as a vice-presidential candidate on the side of Victoria Woodhull in the presidential election; however, the votes for the first candidate woman were invalid because she did not reach the required age. To complete his commitment to equality, he was appointed envoy and consul general in the Republic of Haiti by President Benjamin Harrison in 1891 to succeed John EW Thompson .

Anna Murray Douglass , the wife of Douglass for over forty-four years

Honors

  • In 1950 the Frederick Douglass Memorial Bridge in Washington DC was completed
  • His home in Anacostia, Washington, DC is part of the National Park System
  • In 1965 a US Post stamp was issued with Douglass' image in the Great Americans series
  • In 2013, a Douglass statue was erected in the Washington Capitol (in the Emancipation Hall of the visitor center ). The Emancipation Hall was built in 2007 to commemorate the slave laborers who built the Capitol.

Representation in art

Works

  • Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave (autobiography from 1845, English, docsouth.unc.edu ).
  • The Heroic Slave. Autographs for Freedom. 1853 ( docsouth.unc.edu ).
  • My bondage and my freedom Publisher: Miller, Orton & Mulligan, 1855 - ISBN 1-4043-7168-0 . (Autobiography from 1855, English, archive.org or docsouth.unc.edu ).
  • Slavery and freedom. Autobiography. Translated from English by Ottilie Assing . Hoffmann and Campe, Hamburg 1860 ( limited preview in Google book search, MDZ Munich ).
  • Life and times of Frederick Douglass, written by himself . Publisher: De Wolfe & Fiske Co., Boston 1892 - ISBN 1-4179-4795-0 (autobiography from 1892, English, archive.org , docsouth.unc.edu ).
  • John Brown. An address by Frederick Douglass, at the fourteenth anniversary of Storer College, Harper's Ferry, West Virginia, May 30, 1881. Morning Star job Printing House, Dover NH 1881 ( archive.org ).

literature

  • Linda Diane Barnes: Frederick Douglass. Reformer and statesman. Routledge, New York 2013, ISBN 978-0-415-89111-0 .
  • David W. Blight: Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom. Simon & Schuster, New York 2018, ISBN 978-1-4165-9031-6 .
  • Nicolas Buccola: The political thought of Frederick Douglass: in pursuit of American liberty. New York University 2012, ISBN 978-1-4798-6749-3 .
  • Maria Diedrich: Love Across Color Lines. Ottilie Assing & Frederick Douglass. Hill and Wang, New York 1999, ISBN 0-8090-1613-3 (English)
  • Frederick Douglass: The life of Frederick Douglass as a slave in America told by himself. Lamuv Verlag, Göttingen 1991, ISBN 978-3-88977-272-5 .
  • Philip Sheldon Foner: Frederick Douglass: a biography. Citadel, New York 1964
  • Shirley Graham Du Bois: There was once a slave: the historic story of Frederick Douglass. Messner, New York 1947
  • Andreas Gestrich : The anti-slavery movement in the late 18th and 19th centuries: State of research and research perspectives. In: Unfree working and living conditions from antiquity to the present, Volume 1 (2005).
  • Nathan Irvin Huggins: Slave and citizen: the life of Frederick Douglass. Little Brown, Boston 1980, ISBN 0-316-38000-8 .
  • Robert S. Levine: The lives of Frederick Douglass. Harvard University Press, Cambridge 2016, ISBN 978-0-674-05581-0 .
  • William S. McFeely: Frederick Douglass. Norton, New York 1991, ISBN 0-393-02823-2 .
  • Douglas T. Miller: Frederick Douglass and the fight for freedom. Facts on File, New York 1988, ISBN 0-8160-1617-8 .
  • Benjamin Quarles: Frederick Douglass. DaCapo, New York 1997, ISBN 0-306-80790-4 .
  • Timothy Sandefur: Frederick Douglass: Self-made man. Cato Institute 2018, ISBN 978-1-944424-85-5 .
  • Stephen Weissman : Frederick Douglass. Portrait of a Black Militant. A Study in the Family Romance. The Psychoanalytic Study of the Child, 30/1975, pp. 725-751.
  • Booker T. Washington: Frederick Douglass. Chronology page 11 ff. Publisher: GW Jacobs & Company, Philadelphia 1907 ( archive.org ).
  • Helen Douglass: In memoriam: Frederick Douglass. Publisher: JC Yorston & Co., Philadelphia 1897 ( archive.org ).
  • James M. Gregory: Frederick Douglass the orator. Publisher: Willey Company, Springfield, 1907 ( archive.org ).
  • A Memorial of Frederick Douglass from the city of Boston . Printed by order of the City Council 1896 ( archive.org ).
  • Hendrikje Schauer, Marcel Lepper : Brontë, Douglass, Marx and Stone. Parallel lives. Berlin / Weimar 2018, ISBN 978-3-9819406-0-2 . (with chronology, register).

Web links

Wikisource: Frederick Douglass  - Sources and full texts
Commons : Frederick Douglass  - collection of images, videos and audio files
Wikiquote: Frederick Douglass  - Quotes

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ On the question of when Douglass was born, s. Annika Neklason: The Mystery Behind Frederick Douglass's Birthday in: The Atlantic (online edition), February 17, 2018.
  2. ^ Jörg Nagler : Abraham Lincoln. America's great president. A biography. CH Beck, Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-406-58747-4 , p. 321
  3. ↑ Autobiography, p. 2 (digitized version)
  4. ↑ quoted from: Frederick Douglass: Das Leben des Frederick Douglass, Lamuv Verlag, Göttingen 1991, p. 86.
  5. ↑ nytimes.com: Frederick Douglass's Original New York Times Obituary From 1895
  6. ↑ digitized version (full text)
  7. ↑ see "Frederick Douglass Timeline" on the "Frederick Douglass Home Page" , Library of Congress August 25, 2004, (accessed October 26, 2012)
  8. ↑ Frederick Douglass, "Slavery in the Pulpit of the Evangelical Alliance: An Address Delivered in London, England, on September 14, 1846." London Inquirer, September 19, 1846 and London Patriot, September 17, 1846. Blassingame, John (et al., Eds.). The Frederick Douglass Papers: Series One - Speeches, Debates, and Interviews. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1979. Vol. I, p. 407. ( Memento of the original from September 29, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.yale.edu
  9. ^ Hannah Rose "Frederick Douglass and the Evangelical Alliance" Feb 17, 2012
  10. ^ Letter from Frederick Douglass to Elizabeth McClintock - acceptance of his participation
  11. ↑ see: Equal Rights Party in the English language Wikipedia.
  12. ^ Antje Schrupp : "Vote for Victoria!": The wild life of America's first presidential candidate Victoria Woodhull (1838-1927). Ulrike Helmer Verlag , Sulzbach am Taunus 2016, ISBN 978-3-89741-393-1 , p. 109
  13. ^ Douglass, F .: The life of Frederick Douglass , Lamuv Verlag, Göttingen 1991.
  14. ↑ Marina Villeneuve: Statue of Frederick Douglass dedicated at the US Capitol . In: Los Angeles Times . June 19, 2013 ( [1] ).
personal data
SURNAME Douglass, Frederick
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Bailey, Frederick Augustus Washington (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American abolitionist and writer
DATE OF BIRTH 1817 or 1818
PLACE OF BIRTH Talbot County , Maryland
DATE OF DEATH February 20, 1895
Place of death Washington, DC