Frederick Douglass: The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass

Frederick Douglass: The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass

Introduction

Frederick Douglass was a slave turned statesman whose speeches and writings played a significant role in the fight against slavery in the United States. Although Douglass was not a student of philosophy in the scholarly sense, his considerable influence on American political thought is evident in the writings of W. E. B. Du Bois and other later thinkers on race. Douglass was also a major proponent of women's equality and female suffrage, writing on behalf of, and forming political alliances with, leading nineteenth-century American feminists such as Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. As an author and activist, Douglass belonged to a tradition of prophetic thinkers who used the written and spoken word to rework, and to give meaning to, the tenets of the American founding as a means to achieving social and political equality for those originally disadvantaged by and excluded from the U.S. Constitution.

Doughlass published The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass in 1881 which was his extended autobiography. This was the third volume of his autobiography following the second volume "My Bondage and My Freedom" which was published in 1855. His book "The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass" proved that he was not only the author but also a narrator of the narrative. Douglass was rhetorically known as the spirited and skilled man. He was also an influential orator of for the abolonist movement.

Discussion

Frederick Douglass rose to prominence in the mid-1800s as a key figure in the abolitionist movement. It was his active dissent from the schooling opportunities for Americans of African descent, which were limited to free Blacks at the time, and his consequent efforts to educate himself that would earn Douglass a vital place in American history. Born a slave in 1818, Douglass escaped to New York in 1838 at the age of 20. Three years later, on August 12, 1841, Douglass delivered an impassioned speech to the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, marking the beginning of his career as one of the most famous orators, writers, and statesmen in U.S. history. Through his speeches and writings, Douglass championed a number of causes until his death at age 77. This entry reviews Douglass's formative years as a slave, his 55-year career as an American reformer, and the endurance of his legacy through his autobiographies.

Born Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey, Douglass was separated from his mother in infancy and raised by his grandmother. At age 8, he was sent to Baltimore, Maryland, to live with his master's brother, Hugh Auld. It was Auld's wife Sophia who would teach Douglass the alphabet. When Auld learned of these lessons, he demanded they stop. Undeterred, Douglass continued his education with the assistance of poor White boys he encountered while running errands for the Aulds.

At the age of 12, Douglass obtained a copy of The Columbian Orator, a popular classroom text containing a collection of political essays and speeches. In later writings, Douglass would credit ...