Frederick Douglass

Robert S. Levine observes, ôFrederick Douglass (1818-95) has emerged as the representative black male writer of the periodö (3). His lifetime encompassed the period when slavery was at its height in the United States through the Civil War, the struggle for emancipation, and the aftermath which laid the essential foundations for the civil rights movement on the mid-twentieth century. DouglassÆs skill as a speaker and writer transcended his limited education and forced audiences of all races to listen to his words and consider his arguments. Gregory P. Lampe writes, ôFrom 1841 until his death in 1895, this formerly unknown slave earned a reputation as the most distinguished and celebrated African American leader and orator of the nineteenth centuryö (vii).

Benjamin Quarles points out, ôDouglass is the exclusive authority for the story of the early years o

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tes Douglass, who observed, ôEvery tone was a testimony against slavery, and a prayer to God for deliverance from chainsö (76). DouglassÆs first wife, Anna Murray, was a housekeeper for a well-off Baltimore family whom he met as a member of the East Baltimore Improvement Society. She helped him buy his way to freedom. She was the mother of his four children, Rosetta, Lewis, Frederick Jr., and Charles. In 1846, Douglass sailed to the British isles, in part to escape the grasp of slave hunters, in part to speak out against slavery to English and Scottish audiences, and in part to raise money to purchase his freedom and start a newspaper. His speeches there helped to build British antipathy for the American South as talk of civil war in America began to grow. On his return, he began publishing North Star, the first of three anti-slavery newspapers for which he served as editor and publisher. He played an important role in the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention, which was the formal start of the American womanÆs rights movement. He also participated in agitation for temperance. He printed his autobiography, My Bondage and My Freedom, in 1855. Levine argues, ôThe act of writing was central to DouglassÆs career. In addit
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Approximate Word count = 1865
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page)

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