Happy Birthday Mr. Frederick Douglass. Valentine’s Day Pales.
Frederick Douglass was perhaps born on February 14, 1818. The month and year are estimates for he was born at a time when slaves were prohibited from reading and writing. No records were kept. Douglass chose the 14th as the day of his birth and died 77 years and 6 days later on February 20, 1895. ”The Lion of Anacostia”, Douglass is one of the most prominent figures in United States history. In 1872, without his knowledge, Douglass became the first African-American nominated for Vice President in the U.S., running on the Equal Rights Party ticket with Victoria Woodhull, the first woman to run for President of the United States.
As a slave at age twelve, his master’s wife taught Frederick the alphabet, breaking the law against teaching slaves to read. The master found out & strongly disapproved saying, in front of Frederick, that if a slave learned to read, he would become dissatisfied with his condition and desire freedom. From white children in the neighborhood, observation and practice, Douglass taught himself to read. He credits the book, The Columbian Orator with clarifying his ideas about freedom, civil rights, servitude and the power of oratory.
Douglass literally went far in the world. Before the US Civil War, he traveled to Ireland and Great Britain, where he was already famous with many public journals on human rights and abolition named after him. By the breakout of the Civil War, Douglass was known, even in the US, for his powerful oratory on the rights of all people, including women whom he supported in particular, to be equal in all things. He met with Abraham Lincoln regularly and, after the war ended he was appointed to US Government positions as marshal to the District of Columbia, consul-general to the Republic of Haiti and as chargé d’affaires for the Dominican Republic. He accomplished far more than I need list here. His biography is widely available.
Douglass, without doubt, read ”Dialogue Between a Master and Slave” from the Columbian Orator mentioned above. As it would be any day, today is a good day to read such a logical discourse:
The pages are posted here, the entirety linked to above in the sentence or a URL is linked below :
Hard To Find Reading in 1831, When Douglass Was a 12 Year-Old Slave in Maryland.
-Barbara McCarren
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