American Minute with Bill Federer
Feb. 7 - Frederick Douglass |
Frederick Baily was born around FEBRUARY 7, 1817, though no accurate records exist, as he was a slave.
He did not know who his father was, and before being separated from her
as an infant, he did not remember seeing his mother in the daylight.
Around 12 years old, his master's sister-in-law taught him to read, despite this being against the law.
Voraciously reading newspapers, books, and a publication titled "The
Columbian Orator," Frederick is noted as saying "knowledge is the
pathway from slavery to freedom."
Frederick was hired out to
the William Freeland plantation where he taught other slaves to read
the New Testament at a weekly Sunday school. Enthusiasm in learning to
read drew more than 40 slaves to attend.
Neighboring Democrat
plantation owners understood that slaves could be more easily
manipulated and controlled if they could not read, so one Sunday they
burst in with clubs and dispersed Frederick's congregation.
In
1837, Frederick fell in love with Anna Murray, a free black in
Baltimore. She helped provide him with a sailor's uniform and some
identification papers from a free black seaman, and on September 3,
1838, Frederick escaped by boarding a train to Havre de Grace, Maryland,
and from there fled to New York.
Frederick and Anna Murray
were married eleven days later by a black Presbyterian minister, and
they change their last name from "Baily" to "Douglass" to hide
Frederick's former identity.
They joined a black church and
regularly attended abolitionist meetings, where, in 1841 they heard
William Lloyd Garrison, a founder of the Liberty Party, which was
replaced by the Free-Soil Party and then the Republican Party.
When Frederick Douglass was unexpectedly asked to speak, William Lloyd
Garrison was so impressed that he eventually hired Douglass to sell
subscriptions to the anti-slavery newspaper, The Liberator.
In
1843, Douglass went on a 6-month speaking tour through Eastern and
Midwestern States with the American Anti-Slavery Society. He was
frequently accosted and even had his hand broken, which never healed
properly.
In 1845, Frederick Douglass published his
autobiography and it became an instant best-seller, being translated
into French and Dutch.
Skeptics could not believe a former
slave could have written such an eloquent book, so they began to
question Douglass' real identity.
Douglass had to flee to Ireland to avoid slave-catchers.
The Irish were supportive of Douglass, as during the 17th century, more
Irish were sold into slavery than Africans, either by British to the
Caribbean and American Coast, or by Muslim Corsair pirates to North
Africa's Barbary Coast.
Douglass met with Irish reformer Daniel
O'Connell, and then traveled to England where English abolitionist
friends raised over $700 to buy Douglass' freedom.
Douglass returned to New York where he founded the North Star newspaper and wrote in support of abolition and women's suffrage.
His motto was: "Right is of no sex-Truth is of no color-God is the Father of us all, and we are all Brethren."
He was an advisor to the first Republican President, Abraham Lincoln,
even raising the first all Black Regiment, the "54th Massachusetts."
Frederick Douglass stated:
"I am a Republican, a black, dyed in the wool Republican, and I never
intend to belong to any other party than the party of freedom and
progress."
Douglass told the story of his conversion:
"I loved all mankind, slaveholder not excepted, though I abhorred slavery more than ever. I saw the world in a new light...
I gathered scattered pages of the Bible from the filthy street gutters,
and washed and dried them, that...I might get a word or two of wisdom
from them." |
Read the book Three Secular Reasons Why American Should be Under God
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Daily Reading: http://www.biblegateway.com/resources/readingplans/index.php/2012/02/07
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