Frederick Douglass, The Lion Who Wrote History, by Walter Dean Myers.
Illustrated by yours truly, Floyd Cooper.
This is the story of how one man's careful decisions and many accomplishments not
only made his own life better, but in many ways changed the history of America.
Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey was born a slave in Talbot County,
Maryland in 1818.
His grandmother, Betsy Bailey, was also a slave and
she took care of young Frederick.
When he was about nine,
he was sent to live with his slave owner Hugh Auld and his family.
He was given chores to do around the house, and helped care for
the family's children.
Soon after he arrived, Frederick saw Sophia Auld,
the mistress of the house, teaching her children to read.
He wanted to learn, too.
Seeing how eager he was,
Mrs Auld started giving him lessons along with her own children.
But when Hugh Auld found out that his wife was teaching Frederick to read,
he objected.
Teaching a slave to read will make him unfit to be a slave, Mr. Auld said.
Sophia was not happy, but she understood what her husband meant.
The ability to read would expose slaves to ideas and
information that would make them unhappy being owned by someone else.
Frederick also understood what Mr. Auld was saying,
he thought hard about how the slave owner linked reading with slavery.
Frederick listened carefully to the Auld children.
They spoke clearly and directly and
he knew that it was because they also had read the words they used.
He felt that reading would make a difference in how a person lived.
As he grew up in the Auld household,
Frederick was becoming aware of what it meant to be a slave.
Slaves were forced to work for their owners.
As punishment, they could be beaten, and
they could be sold away from their families.
Frederick watched as the Auld children received an education.
He listened as they excitedly share their ideas and dreams with friends.
Theirs sounded like a good life, and
he wanted the same chance to build a good life for himself.
If learning to read would make him unfit to be a slave,
then that's what Frederick would do.
He made the courageous decision to learn to read.
It would be very difficult, because slaves were not allowed to go to school or
have books to practice reading.
When he could,
he borrowed books from the young white friends he sometimes played with.
He picked up old newspapers and flyers he found in the streets.
Anything that contained precious words was important to Frederick.
By the time he was 16, Frederick was tall, well-built, and
very unhappy with his life.
He was also a reader and a young man who used words well.
Sometimes he used them unwisely, after he argued with his master.
He was sent Edward Kovi, a man known for
making slaves less likely to stand up for themselves.
He would bully the black men and
women and beat them until they gave up the struggle to be more than slaves.
Frederick was beaten viciously every week when he was with Kovi.
But one day, the slave breaker tried to beat him again and
he decided to fight back, even if it meant his death.
The two men struggled furiously for more than half an hour.
In the end, it was Kovi who gave up against the now strong Frederick.
Kovi never tried to beat Frederick again.
Frederick was hired out to the shipyards.
He became a caulker, a hard job that took strong hands and careful attention
as he put tar and heavy core between the boards of ships to make them waterproof.
Most of the money he earned went to his master.
But for the first time, Frederick was meeting free black men.
Many of them sailed the very ships he was repairing.
Free black sailors had always been a problem for slaveholders.
They had papers proving they were free and
they were able to walk around most ports as they chose.
The tales of their adventures spread among the enslaved blacks.
Frederick listen to them carefully, and
imagined himself being as free as they were.
When he was 19, Frederick fell in love with a free black woman, Hannah Murray.
But he was a slave and could not be with her as he chose.
The lure of freedom became almost unbearable, but to try to escape was risky
business, slaveholders did not want to lose their precious property.
When slaves who tried to escape were caught, they were often punished severely.
Frederick knew he had to take the chance.
In September 1838, Frederick made his move.
Using the seaman's papers of a free black man sailor and
dressing like the sailors he saw on his job, he boarded a train headed north.
I suppose you have your free papers?
The conductor asked him.
No, sir, I never carry my free papers to sea with me, Frederick said.
Here are my seaman's papers.
The conductor looked at the papers.
You don't sound as if you from around here, he said.
I haven't been around here much, Frederick said, holding his breath.
The conductor gave Frederick a hard look and then accepted his fare.
I don't think you'd like it very much in these parts, he said.
After the train ride, Frederick took a ferry across the Susquehanna River into
Pennsylvania, and then he took another train to New York City.
Frederick arrived at the home of an abolitionist whose name he had been given.
Sir, I could use some help.
Frederick was almost trembling as he spoke to the man when he answered the door.
Come in, come in, the man said.
You've come to the right place.
Frederick entered the house and breathed a sigh of relief.
He had escaped.
Hannah Murray soon joined him in New York, where they were married.
After a short while they made their way to New Bedford, Massachusetts.
And in 1838, New Bedford was a small city with a small but strong black population.
It was nicknamed the whaling city because there were always whale boats in its
harbor.
And Frederick was sure that he could find a job.
Frederick loaded and unloaded ships, sawed wood,
and hauled coal, anything to make a living.
After the slave catchers might be looking for him,
Frederick realized this and he became afraid.
Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey decided to rename himself.
He was now Frederick Douglass.
He was very impressed by the people he met in New Bedford.
All of them were hard-working sailors or dock workers, and many of them were
abolitionists who spoke passionately about the rights of all people.
In turn, the abolitionists were impressed by Douglass.
Here was a man who could actually tell people what it was like to be a slave.
He'd been forced to work with his white master.
He had been beaten.
His sisters had been sold away from the family.
Not only could he tell of his experiences, but
he could speak with an eloquence that stirred the souls of his audience.
Douglass was often asked by the Abolitionist Society to speak at their
meetings.
Some people who heard him could hardly believe that he had ever been a slave.
They wondered if all the black people working in the field or in southern
plantations had that same potential of this tall and handsome young man.
Douglass was also asked to write a story of his life.
In 1845, when he was only 27 years old, his autobiography Narrative
of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave was published.
Frederick Douglass understood how his speaking helped to bring people into
the fight against the evils of slavery and for the equality of all human beings.
In 1848, at a convention for women's rights held in Seneca Falls,
New York, his powerful speech convinced the male delegates to
pass an important amendment demanding that women be allowed to vote.
I have never yet been able to find one consideration, one argument,
one suggestion in favour of man's right to participate in civil government
which did not equally apply to the right of women, Douglass said.
Frederick Douglass spent years speaking for the rights of black people and women.
During those years the differences between the agricultural South,
with its cotton, rice, and other crops, and the more industrial North,
with its large cities and factories, grew more and more distinct.
In 1859, Douglass was contacted by John Brown, a militant white abolitionist.
John Brown was passionate about freedom.
He'd heard the language of other abolitionists and saw that, for
the most part, slave owners paid no attention to them.
These men are all talk, he said.
What we need is action, action.
In Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, Brown shared his plan with Frederick Douglass.
It was risky, but to John Brown,
it was a lot more plausible than the do nothing plans of other abolitionists.
If Frederick Douglass would be a part of his plan,
there would be a great chance of it working.
Here's a chance to put the question to everyone that has ever held a slave, and
to this country, Brown said to Douglass when they met.
Douglass thought hard and carefully.
Brown's plan was to capture the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry,
then take the weapons into the hills.
To me, you're entering a perfect steel trap,
Frederick said, and one from which you will not get out alive.
Shortly after their meeting,
John Brown led the raid on the arsenal at Harpers Ferry on October 16, 1859.
The raiders succeeded in capturing part of the grounds at Harpers Ferry, and
taking a number of hostages.
But in the end, the raid failed, as Douglass thought it would.
The conflict between the North and Southern States came to a head in December
1860 when the Southern States began to secede from the union.
They decided to form their own country, the Confederate States of America.
President Abraham Lincoln ordered American forces, called the Union army,
to put down what he considered simple rebellion and treason.
The battles between the North and South went on for
three long and bloody years without either side gaining a decisive advantage.
The Union Army was made up of white soldiers,
with some blacks used as laborers.
Douglass urged the Union to enlist black soldiers.
In 1863, shortly after the Battle of Gettysburg, he met with President Lincoln,
and urged the president to enlist black soldiers as equals in the Union Army.
I saw in this war the end of slavery, Douglass declared.
I urged every man of color who could to enlist.
To get an eagle on his button, a musket on his shoulder, and
a Star Spangled Banner over his head.
The iron gate of our prison stands half-open.
One gallant rush from the North will fling it wide open.
While 4 millions of our brothers and sisters shall march out into liberty.
180,000 black soldiers, many of whom had been born in slavery,
joined the Union Army.
They helped to defeat the Confederacy in 1865.
In 1865, the 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution was
enacted to legally end slavery in the United States.
The careful and wise decisions made by Frederick Douglass,
to learn to read, to escape from slavery.
To speak out for justice for all Americans and
to aid the Union Army had helped to write American history.
Frederick Douglass, born a slave, continued to work and speak for
the rights of all Americans.
He served the United States government in Washington,
as well as in Haiti as Consul General.
His voice, born in the soft tones of the slave population,
truly became a lion's roar.
[MUSIC]