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Today we're going to learn about the famous abolitionist, Frederick Douglass.
Although he was born a slave, Frederick Douglass later escaped to freedom and became famous
around the world as a writer, speaker, and supporter of freedom for slaves and equal
rights for everyone.
He was born on a plantation in Maryland and named Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey.
Because he was born into slavery, he never knew his birthday.
Slave records show he was born sometime in February of 1818.
Frederick Douglass never knew his father and spent very little time with his mother.
Instead, he was raised by his grandmother until he was six or seven, when he was old
enough to begin work on the plantation.
Two years later, he was sent to Baltimore to be a child's companion in the house of
Mr. Hugh Auld.
It was in Baltimore that young Frederick began to learn how to read.
Mr. Auld's wife, Sophia, taught him the alphabet and how to make simple words, but when her
husband found out what she was doing, he forced her to stop.
He said that teaching a slave to read was illegal and unsafe, that once a slave learned
to read he would never be satisfied with slavery and it would be impossible to keep him.
When young Frederick heard those words, he suddenly realized that learning to read and
write would be his pathway from slavery to freedom.
Although he no longer had a teacher, he secretly taught himself to read and write by watching
others, determined not to give up even though he was punished whenever he was caught.
At about 15 years old, Frederick Douglass was sent from Baltimore back to the plantation,
where he was forced to work for a cruel master who whipped and beat him frequently.
One day when he was sixteen years old, he fought back during a beating, and won, and
the man never beat him again.
Soon after this he was sent to work for another master, and there he made an attempt to escape
to freedom.
That attempt failed, and Frederick Douglass was sent back to Baltimore to work in a shipyard.
In Baltimore he made friends with free black men and women, including Anna Murray, who
encouraged him to try to escape again.
With ID papers borrowed from another friend, Frederick Douglass disguised himself as a
free black sailor and took a train north to New York on September 3, 1838.
Once safe in New York, he wrote to Anna Murray, who traveled north to be with him.
They were married a few days later and settled in New Bedford, Massachusetts, where they
changed their last name to Douglass to avoid being found by Frederick's old master.
At 20 years old, Frederick Douglass was finally a free man.
Soon, he became a preacher, and began attending abolitionist meetings with others who wanted
an end to slavery in the United States.
Before long, he was speaking at anti-slavery meetings himself.
In 1845 he published his first autobiography, "Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass,
an American Slave."
It became wildly popular in the United States as well as Europe, selling thousands of copies.
Douglass and his friends worried that the fame caused by his book would put him in danger
of being recaptured by his old master, and so he traveled to Great Britain for safety.
While there, he was a popular speaker.
Crowds of people came to listen to him.
His supporters there raised enough money to purchase his legal freedom from his old owner,
at a cost of about seven hundred dollars.
With his legal freedom secured, Frederick Douglass returned to the United States in
1847.
There, he continued his fight for freedom and equality.
He started an abolitionist newspaper, attended women's rights conventions, and called for
desegregation of schools.
He also helped escaping slaves to freedom on the Underground Railroad.
By the time the Civil War began, Frederick Douglass was one of the most famous black
men in America.
He even served as an advisor to President Abraham Lincoln, calling for equal treatment
of black soldiers in the Union army.
Following the end of the Civil War and the ratification of the 13th amendment to the
Constitution - which completely outlawed slavery in the United States - Frederick Douglass
continued to call for equality.
Black people and women still did not have the right to vote, and states in the South
were passing new laws to segregate black people from white people.
He lived to see the passage of the 14th amendment, which made everyone born in the United States
a citizen, and the 15th amendment, which gave former slaves and black men the right to vote.
He would not live to see women receive the right to vote or segregation end.
On February 20, 1895, Frederick Douglass spoke in public for the last time, at a Women's
Rights meeting.
After returning home, he suffered a heart attack and died.
He was about 77 years old.
Frederick Douglass remains an influential figure in the history of Civil Rights in America.
He has been honored with statues and his name is found on bridges and schools across the
country.
His face has even been put on stamps and coins.
He fought all his life for equality for everyone.
He always believed what he said in the motto of his newspaper, "Right is of no Sex – Truth
is of no Color – God is the Father of us all, and we are all brethren."
I hope you enjoyed learning about Frederick Douglass today.
Goodbye till next time!
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