In a previous post on July 4th, I quoted Frederick Douglass’s 1952 speech. To learn more about him, I dig into the Wikipedia.

Frederick Douglass, according to the Wikipedia, “was an American social reformer, abolitionist, orator, writer, and statesman. After escaping from slavery in Maryland, he became a national leader of the abolitionist movement in Massachusetts and New York, gaining note for his oratory and incisive antislavery writings.”

In the Hill, Justin Wise writes that Douglass delivered his most famous speech “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July’, on July 5, 1852, in Rochester, NY.

“Douglass was a firm believer in the equality of all peoples, be they white, black, female, Native American, or Chinese immigrants. He was also a believer in dialogue and in making alliances across racial and ideological divides, as well as in the liberal values of the U.S. Constitution.When radical abolitionists, under the motto ‘No Union with Slaveholders,’ criticized Douglass’ willingness to engage in dialogue with slave owners, he replied: ‘I would unite with anybody to do right and with nobody to do wrong’ according to Wikipedia.

What have I, or those I represent, to do with your national independence? Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice, embodied in that Declaration of Independence, extended to us? … What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July?

Frederick Douglass (source: Wikipedia)

Born into Slavery

He was born “into slavery on the Eastern Shore of the Chesapeake Bay in Talbot County, Maryland. The plantation was between Hillsboro and Cordova. [..] Though the exact date of his birth is unknown, he later chose to celebrate the 14th of February as his birthday, remembering that his mother called him her Little Valentine‘.” Douglass was able to escape from slavery with the help of Anna Murray, a free black women from Baltimore, on September 3, 1838. Later in life, he joined the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, an independent black denomination first established in New York City and became an “abolitionist and preacher”.

I have no love for America, as such; I have no patriotism. I have no country. What country have I? The Institutions of this Country do not know me—do not recognize me as a man.

Frederick Douglass, to his Abolitionist friend Garrison (source: wikipedia)

Frederick Douglass died of massive hear attack on February 20, 1895 in Washington, D.C. at 77.

According to the Wikipedia, in 1899, a statue of Frederick Douglass was unveiled in Rochester, New York, making Douglass the the first African-American to be so memorialized in the country. The statue was vandalized on Sunday which was ripped from its pedestal, “the day marking the 168th anniversary of the American abolitionist giving one of his most seminal speeches condemning slavery”.

This note post is part of learning race & inequality in US series inspired by recent protests in US and around the world.