Frederick Douglass Essay

I wrote this essay for a schoalrship. Tell me what you think.

Who is an African American who has contributed to society? The answer to that question depends on the person you are asking and their interests. For most people I’m sure they would say, Martin Luther King Jr., Oprah, Tyra Banks, Terrell Owens or whomever they find interesting. I believe it all started with Frederick Douglass. He is the biggest African American contributor to society. He was an author, anti-slavery lecturer, publisher, an advocate for desegregated schools, influential black leader, women’s rights activist, a husband and a father.

Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey who later on became known as Frederick Douglass was born a slave in Talbot County, Maryland. After the deaths of his mother and grandmother he was sent to owner after owner until at about the age of twelve his owner of the time Sophia Auld broke the law and taught Frederick the alphabet. After Sophia’s husband found out that she was teaching Frederick how to read and right he stated “If a slave learned to read, he would become dissatisfied with his condition and desire freedom”. Frederick later said that that was the first anti-abolitionist speech he had ever heard. He continued learning how to read and write form the other children in the town. Douglass gained his freedom by escaping his owners and later meeting already freed slave Anna Murray and marrying her.

After gaining his freedom Frederick participated in the American Anti-Slavery Society’s Hundred Conventions Project, the Seneca Falls Convention, and was a signatory of the Declaration of Sentiments. He lectured that people should not be treated as a color but as a man. He became a publisher for the newspapers the North Star Frederick Douglass Weekly, Frederick Douglass' Paper, Douglass' Monthly and New National Era. The motto of The North Star was "Right is of no Sex — Truth is of no Color — God is the Father of us all, and we are all brethren." These newspapers symbolized the potential for blacks to achieve whatever goals they set. He also wanted to promote freedom for all slaves.

Frederick thought that the civil war was going to be the end of slavery. He and the abolitionists argued that the aim of the war was to end slavery and that African Americans should be allowed to engage in the fight for their freedom. Douglass wrote about this in his newspapers and gave several speeches declaring his thoughts and how the war was indeed for the liberation of the slaves. Frederick stated that the Emancipation Proclamation was “We were waiting and listening as for a bolt from the sky...we were watching...by the dim light of the stars for the dawn of a new day...we were longing for the answer to the agonizing prayers of centuries." With the North no longer under obligation to return any escaped slaves to the South, Douglass then fought for equality for his people. He and President Abraham Lincoln worked together to provide plans to move the liberated slaves out of the South. Lincoln had expressed doubts about the war ever ending, but soon enough the Confederate forces gave in to the Union and the Civil War was over. After the Civil War, Douglass held several important political positions. He served as President of the Reconstruction-era Freedman's Savings Bank; as marshal of the District of Columbia; as minister-resident and consul-general to the Republic of Haiti (1889–1891); and as chargé d'affaires for the Dominican Republic. After two years, he resigned from his ambassadorship because of disagreements with U.S. government policy.

In 1868, Douglass supported the presidential campaign of Ulysses S. Grant. The Klan Act and the second and third Enforcement Acts were signed into law by President Grant. Grant used their provisions vigorously, suspending habeas corpus in South Carolina and sending troops there and into other states; under his leadership, over 5,000 arrests were made and the Ku Klux Klan was dealt a serious blow. Grant's vigor in disrupting the Klan made him unpopular among many whites, but Frederick Douglass praised him. An associate of Douglass wrote of Grant that African Americans "will ever cherish a grateful remembrance of his name, fame and great services.”

Frederick had five children; two of them, Charles and Rossetta, helped produce his newspapers. On February 20, 1895, Douglass attended a meeting of the National Council of Women in Washington, D.C. During that meeting, he was brought to the platform and given a standing ovation by the audience. Shortly after he returned home, Frederick Douglass died of a massive heart attack or stroke in his adopted hometown of Washington, D.C. He is buried in Mount Hope Cemetery in Rochester, New York. Frederick Douglass was extremely influential and vastly contributed to society.