today we're looking at Frederick Douglass hello welcome to the daily bellringer please
don't forget to subscribe and take a look at the questions down in the description also
I'd love to see your answer to question number five in the comments below so today Frederick
Douglass arguably one of the most well-known and important abolitionist leaders of the 1800s and
Douglass was a former slave himself that spent his entire life fighting for equal rights and
freedom for all people so let's look at some of his back Douglass was born into slavery in 1818
in Talbot County Maryland and Douglass himself actually never knew his exact birth date and
that was actually pretty common for a lot of slaves but they never knew exactly what their
real birthday was but his birth name was actually Frederick Bailey and he takes on the name Douglass
once he escapes to try to keep himself from being recaptured so as a child he was able to learn the
alphabet from one of his slave owners and from there he was able to teach himself to read and
write once he learns how to read and write then he begins to teach other slaves to be able to
read and write and of course the slave owners did not like that because remember one of the
best ways to keep someone in bondage or to keep them under your control is to make sure they're
not educated so slave owners did not want slaves to be educated so once it's found out that he's
teaching others to read and write he was sent to another plantation that was known for being
very brutal and Douglass was you know beaten several times here at this other plantation
this was around he was around the age of 16 when this occurs but it's after that that he really
begins to try to escape and he had several failed escape attempts and in 1838 at about the age of
20 he's able to get on board a northbound train going through Delaware and he has the papers of a
friend and remember at this time african-americans had to carry papers to prove that they were free
to travel and so these papers didn't describe Frederick Douglass they described to someone
else and he was very fearful that they might discover that he was not really the person in
the papers but he's able to get to New York City luckily and once he gets there he sends back for
a fellow slave named Anna Marie and Anna Marie arrives in New York they get married there and
then from there they moved to New Bedford Massachusetts and it's there that they take
on the last name of Douglass again to try to check their identity and not be recaptured but
it's while in New Bedford that Frederick begins to attend abolitionist meetings and while these
abolitionist meetings he gets introduced to William Lloyd Garrison remember William Lloyd
Garrison was that big abolitionist leader the publisher of that big paper The Liberator and
so garrison begins really encouraged douglass to get up and speak and talk about his experience as
a slave you got to remember how big this was for the abolitionist movement to have a former slave
that was literate that was an eloquent speaker as Douglass was was huge because this was someone who
had experienced this firsthand in a me what what a great testimony it was of how terrible slavery was
and so by 1843 Douglass was part of the American anti-slavery societies six-month tour of the u.s.
spreading the message of anti-slavery now of course during this time Douglass actually gets
beaten and a lot of these events you know member being an abolitionist was not a safe thing to do
there were a lot of people that were against it but in 1845 he published the book narrative of
the life of Frederick Douglass an American slave which really you know was his biography that you
know showed how terrible and evil slavery was one of good was his famous quotes and this is
a quote that I love from Frederick Douglass he would say I appear before you this evening as a
thief and a robber I stole this head these limbs this body from my master and ran off with them
so he basically displayed how absurd and how evil it was for someone to say that one human
can own another human being other human being I just love that quote from Frederick Douglass so
by 1847 he was publishing his own abolitionist newspaper called the North Star and also in 1848
he attends the Seneca Falls convention which was a convention pushing for equal rights for women
so once the Civil War breaks out in 1861 he goes on to be an advisor to President Lincoln he meets
with President Lincoln several times he also is instrumental in recruiting African American
troops to fight in in the war now of course when the war is over slavery is eliminated there's
there's amendments that are passed that try to guarantee you know citizenship and equal rights
and non-discrimination for African Americans but of course we know how all that went that
you know states just simply do not abide by it and discrimination is still terrible in several states
and so Douglass continues his fight for equal rights and fight for liberty for people and so
after the war he he holds several different positions within the government he's active
and you know fighting again for equal rights for African Americans and women in 1878 he moved to
his estate cedar hill overlooking Washington DC and from there he could walk down into the city
meet with congressmen and again fight for equal rights and it's interesting actually in 1888 he's
the first African American to receive a vote for president at the Republican National Convention of
course he doesn't receive the nomination on February 20th 1895 Douglass died of a heart
attack at Cedar Hill and actually just that day he had been attending a women's suffrage meeting in
Washington DC so again just think about the life of Frederick Douglass absolutely remarkable in
a time period when he was not considered to be a human being just simply because of the
color of his skin and he was considered to be the property of someone else it is absolutely
remarkable that he escapes from that moves on to become an advisor to the President and moves on
to change the entire world and begin to change people's ideas about you know what is right and
what is fair and what is freedom so hopefully you learned something there and thanks for watching
you