|
Frederick Douglass
b. 2-14-c.1818; Maryland
d. 2-20-1895
Poster Text: “The more I read, the more I was lead to abhor and detest my enslavers. I could regard them in no other light than a band of successful robbers, who had left their homes, and gone to Africa, and stolen us from our homes, and in a strange land reduced us to slavery. I loathed them as being the meanest as well as the most wicked of men.”- Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey was born into slavery in rural Maryland – he never knew exactly when he was born. As a child, he wore nothing but a shirt, ate little but mush, and lived in fear of the brutal beatings that were common on the plantation. When he was 7 or 8 years old, he was sent to Baltimore to serve as a houseboy for the Auld family. Mrs. Sophia Auld taught “Freddy” the alphabet and some simple words before her husband ordered her to stop. But Freddy did not stop, and he learned how to read by tricking some white servants into helping him. By the time he was went back to work in the fields, he had made up his mind to be free. He held on to this feeling through several years of horrible treatment as a field slave. He finally escaped in 1838 and made his way north to New Bedford, Massachusetts, where he took the name “Frederick Douglass.”
An anti-slavery group invited Douglass to talk to them. He soon became known as a powerful speaker and a leader of the abolitionist movement. His autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, Written by Himself, was published in 1845. The book was very popular because Douglass wrote about the evils of slavery in his own truthful words.
After Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass was published, Douglass was the best-known and most respected African American leader in the nation. He founded a magazine, published two more works of autobiography, and helped recruit African American troops during the Civil War. After the Civil War, Douglass served as Minister to Haiti and as the Marshal for the District of Columbia. He died in 1895.
• more Frederick Douglass posters
• more Writers Who Changed the World posters
|
