[Eoscstudents] Black History

[Levenia Carey]

Hello All:

Today the spotlight continues to be on pioneers for freedom and 
excellence.  Frederick Douglass (1817-1895) is the most important 
African-American leader of the 19th century; abolitionist; journalist; 
diplomat.  He is often called the "father of the civil rights 
movement."  Born a slave, Frederick Douglass never knew his father.  Nor 
did he know the exact date of his birth. He picked February 14 as his 
birthday because his mother, who died when he was seven, use to refer to 
him as her "little valentine."  When Douglass was eight, his master, 
Thomas Auld, lent him out to work for a family in Baltimore.  There he 
learned to read and write and was relatively well treated.  In 1833, 
Douglass was returned to Auld. When he resisted Auld's cruel treatment, 
he was hired out to a "Negro-breaker" named Covey, who whipped Douglass 
repeatedly and forced him to labor in the fields 12 to 14 hours a day.  
Later Douglass was hired out to another farmer, William Freeland, but 
after an attempted escape, he was sent back to Baltimore.  There he was 
hired out to work in the shipyards, where he was attacked and almost 
blinded in one eye.

With the help of Anna Murray, a freeborn African-American woman who he 
later married, Douglass escaped to New York.  From there, he made his 
way to New Bedford, Massachusetts, where he dropped the name he has 
carried since birth - Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey - and took 
the name Frederick Douglass.  He became a lecturer for the Massachusetts 
Anti-Slavery Society and was so effective a speaker that some people 
questioned whether he had ever really been a slave.  In response, 
Douglass wrote his autobiography, in which he provided so much detailed 
information that he jeopardized his own safety and was forced to flee to 
England.  There he continued to speak out against slavery and to argue 
in favor of Irish freedom, women's rights, and world peace.  His growing 
fame made it impossible for him to return to the United States while 
still a fugitive, so a group of supporters arranged to purchase his freedom.

Arriving back in the United States in 1847, Douglass settled in 
Rochester, New York, where he began publication of the North Star 
Newspaper. Financially, it was an extremely risky venture, but Douglass 
believed he could not continue to filter his thoughts through the white 
abolitionist press.  The difficulty he had anticipated proved correct.  
Within six months, he was forced to  mortgage his home to keep the paper 
going.  He continued to lecture against slavery and suffered a broken 
arm after being attacked by a proslavery mob in Indiana.  He also 
arranged for his printing shop to be used as a station on the 
Underground Railroad.  Over the course of 10 years, more than 400 
escaped slaves found help there.

In 1848, Douglass met with JOhn Brown, who later led the unsuccessful 
raid on Harpers Ferry.  In fact, Brown spent three weeks at Douglass' 
house shortly before the 1859 raid.  Douglass thought Brown's plan 
suicidal but could not convince him to change it.  Even though Douglass 
did not join the attempted uprising, he was forced to flee to Canada 
when the governor of Virginia swore out a warrant for his arrest as an 
accomplice.  He returned to the United States in 1860.

When the Civil War broke out, Douglass pressed President Lincoln to free 
all slaves immediately and to allow African Americans to enlist in the 
Union forces. It was not until 1863, however, that Lincoln issued the 
Emancipation Proclamation freeing slaves in Confederate territory and 
allowing blacks to enlist. Douglass moved immediately to recruit black 
soldiers.  His own two sons were among the first to enlist, but the 
outrageous treatment of black Union soldiers caused Douglass to halt his 
recruitment efforts.  The unequal pay, inferior equipment, segregated 
units, and lack of black officers was infuriating enough. Even worse 
were the reports of Confederate atrocities against African-American 
soldiers.  He met with Lincoln concerning these matters but was unable 
to get a satisfactory response.

Douglass feared that the North might agree to end the war should the 
Southern states offer to return to the UNion provided they could keep 
their slaves.  People were tired of fighting, dismayed by the 
ever-lengthening lists of dead and wounded, and apprehensive of the 
mounting financial cost.  To block any attempt to end the war by selling 
out African-American rights, he embarked on a speaking tour.  Again and 
again, Douglass repeated his four main points:  that the aim of the war 
should be the abolition of slavery; that there could be no peace that 
did not include an end to slavery; that everyone was entitled to the 
same rights; and that black men should have the vote.

Once the war was over, Douglass began pressing for black voting and 
economic rights. Ironically, this forced a serious break between him and 
group who cause he had always championed - women.  The fifteenth 
Amendment gave the vote to black men.  It said nothing about women, and, 
as a result, it was opposed by leaders in the women's movement.  
Douglass had always been a strong supporter of women's suffrage, but he 
was not willing to jeopardize the black male vote for it. The break with 
the women's movement was painful for Douglass, but he saw no alternative.

Douglass also became entangled in an unsuccessful effort to save the 
Freedman's Savings and Trust Co., a bank started in 1865 for newly freed 
slaves.  Knowing that the bank's collapse would cost thousands of former 
slaves their life savings, Douglass took over the presidency of the 
institution and even invested his own money in it.  However, in 1874, 
the Freedman's Bank was forced to close, and many depositors lost all or 
most of their money.

In 1877, President Hayes appointed Douglass marshall of the District of 
Columbia.  Four years later, President Garfield made him recorder of 
deeds, a post Douglass held for five years.  In 1889, President Benjamin 
Harrison named him minister-resident and consul-general to Haiti and the 
Dominican Republic.  In each of these posts, Douglass served with 
distinction.

On February 20, 1895, Frederick Douglass died of a heart attack. "Save 
the Negro and you save the Nation," he said.  "Destroy the Negro and you 
destroy the Nation, and to save both you must have but one great law of 
Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity for all Americans without respect to 
color.....What I ask for the negro is not benevolence, not pity, not 
sympathy, but simple justice."

We encourage you to read more and increase your knowledge base.  There 
are contributions by African-Americans that have impacted our world, our 
lives, as we know them today. 

Thanks,
Levenia, Marilynn, Brenton, NAACP-Psycho Club
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