biography

Born: February, 1818
Died:  February 20, 1895
Birthplace: Maryland

If the old adage "The Pen is Mightier than the Sword" ever needed substantiation, one need look no farther than the life of Frederick Douglass.

Born a slave, Douglass embraced both the written and spoken word to achieve political and social heights no African-American of his time, and precious few since, even dared dream of.

Like many second-generation and after slaves, Douglass was the product of a slave woman and her white master in February 1818 on Maryland’s eastern shore.

His youth didn’t offer any insight into the man he was to become, as he lived the life of most slaves, enduring backbreaking labor and witnessing his peers suffer intense whippings.

Unlike many other slaves, young Douglass was taught to read, an avocation he engulfed with pleasure.  As a teenager, he organized illegal schools to help other slaves learn to read and write.

His ever increasing knowledge made the shackles of slavery all the tighter and, after a failed attempt that landed him in jail, Douglass escaped for good and fled to New Bedford, Massachusetts with his young bride in 1838.

Douglass continued to educate himself and became caught up in the Abolitionist movement to end slavery forever.  William Lloyd Garrison, one of the Abolitionist leaders, became Douglass’s mentor.

"No face and form ever impressed me with such sentiments (anti-slavery) as did those of William Lloyd Garrison," Douglass wrote in his autobiography.

At the tender age of 23, Douglass gave a speech to the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society that stirred passion into even the most obtuse heart.  It was the start of a public speaking career that continued throughout his life.

In 1845, Douglass published his autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Written By Himself.  Fearing recapture as a slave, Douglass went to the British Isles for two years.

While in Britain Douglass spoke in favor of Irish home rule and eventually would speak on behalf of the European peasantry, women's suffrage, prison reform, free public school education and universal peace.