Frederick Douglass was the most photographed man of the 19th century, known for his eloquent speeches and powerful writings that deeply influenced both sides of the Atlantic. His mother was an enslaved woman, and his upbringing was marked by the separation from his family and the cruelty of slavery. Despite this, Douglass's literacy journey began when Sophia Auld taught him the alphabet, a skill he later shared with fellow enslaved individuals. One of the pivotal moments in his life was fighting back against an abusive "slave breaker," which reignited his determination for freedom and personal agency.

Douglass's escape from slavery in 1838, supported by Anna Murray, a free Black woman who he later married, marked a significant turning point. Moving to Massachusetts, he rose to prominence as an abolitionist, working with William Lloyd Garrison and contributing to the publication "The Liberator." His book, "Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave," published in 1845, challenged public perceptions about the capabilities of formerly enslaved people and significantly impacted the dialogue on slavery in America.

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Key Vocabularies and Common Phrases:

1. enslaved [ɪnˈsleɪvd] - (verb) - Subjected to a condition of bondage or servitude. - Synonyms: (captured, subjugated, oppressed)

His mother was an enslaved woman, and his father was a white man rumored to have been his mother's enslaver.

2. abolitionist [ˌæb.əˈlɪʃ.ən.ɪst] - (noun) - Someone who advocates for the abolition, especially of slavery. - Synonyms: (emancipator, opponent of slavery, reformer)

Frederick became a prominent anti slavery orator and abolitionist.

3. interstate [ˌɪntərˈsteɪt] - (adjective) - Relating to the existing or occurring between states, particularly with regard to trade or travel. - Synonyms: (cross-state, trans-state)

Of the two thirds of a million interstate sales made by the traders in the decades before the civil war, 25% involved the destruction of a first marriage.

4. orator [ˈɔːrətər] - (noun) - A skilled public speaker, especially one who is eloquent or rhetorically talented. - Synonyms: (speaker, lecturer, rhetorician)

Before Douglas career as an orator paid the bills, Douglas had already desperately wanted freedom.

5. embers [ˈɛmbərz] - (noun) - Glimmering fragments or pieces of a burning or another glowing source, often referring to remnants of a fire. - Synonyms: (coals, glow, ashes)

It rekindled the few expiring embers of freedom and revived within me a sense of my own manhood.

6. patriotism [ˈpeɪtriˌɒtɪzəm] - (noun) - The quality of being patriotic, having or expressing devotion to and vigorous support for one's country. - Synonyms: (nationalism, loyalty, allegiance)

By showcasing an ultimate display of patriotism, Douglas thought that black men would be able to demonstrate their worthiness of citizenship.

7. incarnation [ˌɪnkɑːrˈneɪʃən] - (noun) - A person or thing regarded as embodying the qualities or spirit of another. - Synonyms: (embodiment, personification, epitome)

This judicial incarnation of wolfishness my answer is, and no thanks to the slaveholding wing of the Supreme Court.

8. culminated [ˈkʌlmɪˌneɪtɪd] - (verb) - Reached the highest point or climax. - Synonyms: (climaxed, peaked, concluded)

Douglas advocacy played a significant role in President Lincoln's decision to enact the emancipation proclamation on January 1, 1863.

9. advocacy [ˈæd.və.kə.si] - (noun) - Public support for or recommendation of a particular cause or policy. - Synonyms: (support, promotion, backing)

Douglas advocacy played a significant role in President Lincoln's decision to enact the emancipation proclamation on January 1, 1863.

10. liberationist [ˌlɪbəˈreɪʃənɪst] - (adjective) - Relating to principles supporting the liberation from oppression or inequity, especially in social contexts. - Synonyms: (emancipatory, progressive, reformist)

Douglas eventually left the Liberator, and after spending two years in Europe, he returned to the US in 1847 and partnered with physician, abolitionist, and black nationalist Martin Delaney to form a liberationist newspaper called the North Star.

Frederick Douglass - Crash Course Black American History #17

Hi, I'm Clint Smith, and this is Crash Course Black American History. Today, we're talking about a true legend, one of the greatest to ever do it. He was the most photographed man of the 19th century. He wrote speeches that got standing ovations on both sides of the Atlantic. And he wrote books that made people across the world understand the barbarity and cruelty of slavery in new ways. In addition to his advocacy, he is legit one of the best writers America has ever produced. Today, we're getting into the life and times of the one and only Mr. Frederick Douglass.

Frederick Douglass was born Frederick Bailey in Maryland in either 1817 or 1818. His mother was an enslaved woman, and his father was a white man rumored to have been his mother's enslaver. He saw very little of his mother as a child because she lived on a different plantation 12 miles away. Douglass's mother died when he was only 7 years old, and he was raised by his grandmother. Family separation was one of the most horrific parts of enslavement, and it was not uncommon for enslaved children to be split apart from their parents even at an early age. In his book Soul by Soul, historian Walter Johnson writes, of the two thirds of a million interstate sales made by the traders in the decades before the civil war, 25% involved the destruction of a first marriage and 50% destroyed a nuclear family, many of these separating children under the age of 13 from their parents.

When Douglass was a child, the wife of one of his enslavers, Sophia Auld, began teaching him the alphabet in a few short words. This began to open up the world to young Frederick, whose blooming literacy allowed him to see the world in a new way. But soon, Sophia's husband Hugh put a stop to these lessons by telling his wife that, quote, if you teach him how to read, there would be no keeping him. It would forever unfit him to be a slave. But Douglass did learn to read, and he later held secret meetings to teach other enslaved people how to read as well.

It wasn't only Douglass's ability to read that made his story remarkable. One of the most infamous stories from Douglass's life before he escaped slavery was the day he decided to fight back. In Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, the first of his three memoirs, Douglass discussed a man named Edward Covey. Covey was what was known as a slave breaker, known for breaking unruly enslaved people who presented problems to the planters. Covey was notoriously ruthless. In early 1833, Douglass was rented out to Covey and for months was subjected to unrelenting abuse.

Sometimes, after he had been whipped by Covey, the gashes from his previous beatings had not even healed yet. One sweltering day in August, Douglass passed out from working arduously in the heat. When Covey discovered him, he beat him severely until blood was dripping from his head. Douglass vowed to himself that he would never let this happen again. When Covey next attempted to beat Douglass, Douglass fought back so fiercely that Edward Covey never touched him again. In his memoir, Douglass wrote, this battle with Mr. Covey was the turning point in my career as a slave. It rekindled the few expiring embers of freedom and revived within me a sense of my own manhood. It recalled the departed self-confidence and inspired me again with a determination to be free.

But it wasn't only through physical resistance that Douglass reasserted and affirmed his humanity. It was, as it was for millions of other enslaved people, also done through the community they built and the relationships they cultivated. On September 15, 1838, Douglass married a free black woman named Anna Murray. We know Frederick Douglass to be one of the most famous and influential figures in American history. But the lesser-known Anna played an important role in helping Douglass escape to freedom in the first place and also took on the burden of financially supporting their family.

Before Douglass's career as an orator paid the bills, Douglass had already desperately wanted freedom. But meeting and falling in love with a woman who herself was free only reaffirmed that desire. He borrowed papers and a sailor's uniform for a disguise. His journey required him to hop on a moving train, avoid anyone who may have recognized him and take a detour by ferry, all to get him from Baltimore to New York within a day. Douglass later wrote of arriving in New York City, a new world had opened upon me. If life is more than breath and the quick round of blood, I lived more in one day than in a year of my slave life. It was a time of joyous excitement which words can but tamely describe. Anna met him there shortly after and they were married just 11 days after Douglass had arrived. As you can tell, Anna looked out for Fred way before the rest of the world would know his name.

Like many black women though, she doesn't always get the credit she deserves in the historical record. But know that without Anna Murray there would be no Frederick Douglass as we know him. Frederick and Anna settled in Massachusetts, where Frederick became a prominent anti-slavery orator and abolitionist. It was here that he and Anna also adopted Douglass as their surname. He told the story of his life as an enslaved person in ways that illuminated the realities of slavery to those who might not have otherwise been familiar with it and further radicalized those who had already believed it was wrong. Word of his remarkable speeches began to spread and garnered the attention of many white abolitionists.

The most famous of these, perhaps, was William Lloyd Garrison. Douglass would go on to work on Garrison's abolitionist publication, the Liberator. It was during his time at the Liberator that Douglass wrote his first and most well-known book, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave. It was published in 1845. This book was a remarkable achievement and remains one of my own personal favorite books of all time. But many white people at the time of its publication thought it was almost too remarkable. So much so that they questioned whether a formerly enslaved person could have even written such a thing. But Douglass did write it, and with it, he helped transform the conversation on slavery across the country.

Douglass eventually left the Liberator, and after spending two years in Europe, he returned to the US in 1847 and partnered with physician, abolitionist, and black nationalist Martin Delaney to form a liberationist newspaper called the North Star, a true reflection of Douglass's activism in advocating for the rights of black people as well as the rights of women. The paper's motto read, right is of no sex, truth is of no color, God is the father of us all, and all we are brethren. The North Star had a wide array of issues to cover, including the nationwide controversy over the Fugitive slave law of 1850.

We've previously discussed the Fugitive Slave act of 1793, which empowered enslavers to apprehend runaways and sometimes just any black person, making both escaped slaves and free black folks alike susceptible to bounty hunters in cities throughout the North. But in the new 1850 version, the mandate made things even worse. Under this new law, a part of the Compromise of 1850, federal commissioners paid bounty hunters to return fugitives and penalties for interfering with the apprehension of runaways became more strict. Moreover, citizens were now required to aid in detaining runaways, basically abiding by the mantra, if you see something, say something.

This act and the Dred Scott decision had many black people wondering if freedom in America was even possible. But instead of accepting that the slavery question had been definitively answered, Douglass made a public speech addressing the inhumanity of the verdict directly. He boldly shot back, quote, you will readily ask me how I am affected by this devilish decision. This judicial incarnation of wolfishness my answer is, and no thanks to the slaveholding wing of the Supreme Court, my hopes were never brighter than now. Determined to fight back against the tyranny black people faced during this tumultuous time. As a devout Christian, Douglass relied on his faith and trusted God to restore balance in America. At the very least, he suspected that God was ultimately on the abolitionist side of this fight and that God was more powerful than any U.S. supreme Court.

But still, Douglass believed that God wouldn't act on his own and that he couldn't sit back and wait for some divine intervention. During the Civil War, Douglass actively pushed President Abraham Lincoln to prioritize black freedom. In his effort to preserve the Union, he presented the issue as a matter of war policy. Douglass believed that allowing black men to fight in the war would show this country how committed black people were to the United States. By showcasing an ultimate display of patriotism, Douglass thought that black men would be able to demonstrate their worthiness of citizenship.

Douglass was so committed to this idea that he even recruited his own sons, Louis and Charles, to fight in the Union Army. Douglass's advocacy played a significant role in President Lincoln's decision to enact the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863. This proclamation resulted in much-needed leverage for the Union and shifted both the domestic dynamics and the international implications of the war. After the war, Douglass continued to travel, making speeches, writing essays, and revising his earlier books.

Douglass served multiple political appointments in the post-war years, including President of the Freedmen Savings Bank, United States Marshal for the District of Columbia, and Minister, Resident and Council General to the Republic of Haiti. He also started a new newspaper, the New National Era. My man stayed busy. There's so much to say about Frederick Douglass in not nearly enough time. I will say that if you haven't spent much time with his writing, you absolutely should.

My man's pen game was vicious. He wrote so prolifically and so beautifully. It's hard to think of something that was happening in 19th-century America that he didn't write about. There are even some historians today who claim that in many ways, Frederick Douglass should be considered one of our founding fathers. Because while he wasn't at the constitutional convention in 1787, he did play an enormous role in helping the country more directly confront the ways that it was failing to live up to its promise. Thanks for watching. I'll see you next time.

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Education, Inspiration, History, Frederick Douglass, Abolitionism, Civil Rights, Crashcourse