Frederick Douglass was born Frederick "Baily" on a Maryland plantation around FEBRUARY 7, 1817, though no accurate records exist, as he was a slave.

He later chose the birth date of February 14 as he remembered his mother calling him her "little valentine."

He never saw his mother in the daylight, as he was separated from her as an infant. He did not know who his father was.

Around the age of seven, Frederick witnessed a terribly mean overseer, Mr. Gore, shoot a slave in the face.



Douglass was sent to Baltimore where, around the age of 12, his master's sister-in-law, Sophia Auld, began teaching Frederick the alphabet, despite this being against the law.

An example of these laws was one in Virginia, which specified:

"Every assemblage of negroes for the purpose of instruction in reading or writing, or in the night time for any purpose, shall be an unlawful assembly."


In 1854, a Virginia woman, Mrs. Margaret Douglass (no relation to Frederick), was imprisoned in the common jail of Norfolk for a month for teaching colored children to read.


When Sophia Auld's husband found out that she was teaching Frederick to read, he immediately forbade it, saying that if slaves could read, they would grow discontent and desire freedom.
 

Frederick considered this the "first decidedly anti-slavery lecture"' he had ever heard, causing him to be determined to learn how to read all-the-more.




  Frederick wrote in his autobiography of learning to read from neighborhood white children.

He would carefully observe the writings of men he worked with.




He remembered reading a newspaper only to have it snatched away from him with a scolding.



Frederick voraciously read newspapers, books, and a publication titled The Columbian Orator.

He is noted as saying "knowledge is the pathway from slavery to freedom."



Frederick was hired out to the William Freeland plantation where he taught other slaves to read the New Testament at a weekly Sunday school.

Slaves would use dirt as a chalk board.

Enthusiasm in learning to read drew more than 40 slaves to attend.

Douglass wrote:

"I held my Sabbath school at the house of a free colored man, whose name I deem it imprudent to mention; for should it be known, it might embarrass him greatly, though the crime of holding the school was committed ten years ago.

I had at one time over forty scholars, and those of the right sort, ardently desiring to learn. They were of all ages, though mostly men and women.

I look back to those Sundays with an amount of pleasure not to be expressed. They were great days to my soul. The work of instructing my dear fellow-slaves was the sweetest engagement with which I was ever blessed.

We loved each other, and to leave them at the close of the Sabbath was a severe cross indeed.

When I think that these precious souls are to-day shut up in the prison-house of slavery, my feelings overcome me, and I am almost ready to ask, 'Does a righteous God govern the universe? and for what does he hold the thunders in his right hand, if not to smite the oppressor, and deliver the spoiled out of the hand of the spoiler?'"


Neighboring Democrat plantation owners were incensed that their slaves were learning to read, as this made it harder to control them.

One Sunday, slave owners from the surrounding Democrat plantations burst in with clubs and dispersed Frederick's small congregation.


Frederick's owner sent him a "slave-breaker" who whipped him regularly, nearly breaking him psychologically. After an abrupt confrontation, the slave-breaker never tried beating Frederick again.



Frederick's owner rented him out to caulk ships in a shipyard.

In 1837, Frederick fell in love with Anna Murray, a free black in Baltimore.

Anna helped provide Frederick with a sailor's uniform and some identification papers from a free black seaman.



On September 3, 1838, Frederick escaped by boarding a train to Havre de Grace, Maryland, and from there he fled to New York.


Frederick and Anna were married eleven days later by a black Presbyterian minister.



The newlyweds Frederick and Anna moved on north to New Bedford, Massachusetts, and joined a black church.

They changed their last name to "Douglass" to hide Frederick's former identity from Democrat fugitive slave catchers.






Frederick and Anna Douglass regularly attended abolitionist meetings, where, in 1841 they heard William Lloyd Garrison speak.

Garrison was a founder of the Liberty Party, which was replaced by the Free-Soil Party, which was replaced by the Republican Party.




When Frederick Douglass was unexpectedly asked to speak, William Lloyd Garrison was so impressed that he eventually hired Douglass to sell subscriptions to the anti-slavery newspaper, The Liberator.


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In 1843, Douglass went on a 6-month speaking tour through Eastern and Midwestern States with the American Anti-Slavery Society.

He met Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of Uncle Tom's Cabin.

"For nearly a week I spoke every day in this old post office to audiences increasing in numbers and respectability til the Michigan Avenue Baptist church was thrown open to me. When this became too small I went on Sunday into the open park and addressed an assembly of 4,000 persons."  

Frederick Douglass was frequently accosted by Democrat mobs, even having his hand broken, which never healed properly.




In 1845, Frederick Douglass published his autobiography, which became an instant best-seller, being translated into French and Dutch.




Skeptics could not believe a former slave could have written such an eloquent book so they began to question Douglass' real identity.

Realizing that if his true identity was discovered, fugitive slave-catchers would try to capture him and return him to his owner, Frederick Douglass decided to flee to Ireland.



The Irish were supportive of Douglass, as during the 17th century, more Irish Catholics were sold into slavery than Africans, either by British to the Caribbean or by Muslim Corsair pirates to Africa's Barbary Coast.



Douglass met with Irish reformer Daniel O'Connell.

O'Connell was referred to as The Liberator or The Emancipator for his emancipation efforts to remove discriminating Acts against Irish Catholics.

Frederick Douglass then traveled to England where his English abolitionist friends raised over $700 to buy his freedom.

Finally free, Douglass wrote:

"I may be deemed superstitious, and even egotistical, in regarding this event as a special interposition of divine Providence in my favor.

But I should be false to the earliest sentiments of my soul, if I suppressed the opinion. I prefer to be true to myself, even at the hazard of incurring the ridicule of others, rather than to be false, and incur my own abhorrence.

From my earliest recollection, I date the entertainment of a deep conviction that slavery would not always be able to hold me within its foul embrace; and in the darkest hours of my career in slavery, this living word of faith and spirit of hope departed not from me, but remained like ministering angels to cheer me through the gloom.

This good spirit was from God, and to him I offer thanksgiving and praise."


Douglass returned to New York where he founded The North Star newspaper and wrote in support of abolition and women's suffrage.
 
His motto was: "Right is of no sex--Truth is of no color--God is the Father of us all, and we are all Brethren."


After Abraham Lincoln, the first Republican President, issued the Emancipation, January 1, 1863, Frederick Douglass wrote:

"Can any colored man, or any white man friendly to the freedom of all men, ever forget the night which followed the first day of January 1863, when the world was to see if Abraham Lincoln would prove to be as good as his word?"


Frederick Douglass became an adviser to Lincoln.





Douglass even raised the one of the the first all Black Regiments, the "54th Massachusetts," as portrayed in the film Glory (1989), in which Denzel Washington won an Academy Award.





Others early all Black regiments were the 1st Rhode Island Regiment, which fought for America during the Revolutionary War;

and the First Kansas Colored Volunteers, which fought for the Union during the Civil War, notably in the Battles of Island Mound, Cabin Creek, Honey Spring, Poison Springs.

Frederick Douglass stated:

"I am a Republican, a black, dyed in the wool Republican, and I never intend to belong to any other party than the party of freedom and progress."


Many notable Black authors have observed how modern-day dependency on government handouts is reminiscent of the dependency that existed on Southern Democrat plantations, where slaves waited for handouts from their masters.


Star Parker, founder of CURE (Center for Urban Renewal) wrote Uncle Sam's Plantation: How Big Government Enslaves America's Poor and What We Can Do About It.


Rev. C.L.Bryant produced a documentary Runaway Slave Movie, stating: "I am a 'Runaway Slave' from the Democrats' plantation."


C. Mason Weaver wrote It's OK to Leave the Plantation: The New Underground Railroad.


Wayne Perryman wrote Unfounded Loyalty: An In-Depth Look Into The Love Affair Between Blacks and Democrats. 


Jesse Lee Peterson wrote From Rage to Responsibility: Black Conservative Jesse Lee Peterson and America Today


Frederick Douglass told the story of his conversion:

"I was not more than thirteen years old, when I felt the need of God, as a father and protector.

My religious nature was awakened by the preaching of a white Methodist minister, named Hanson.

He thought that all men, great and small, bond and free, were sinners in the sight of God; that they were, by nature, rebels against His government; and that they must repent of their sins, and be reconciled to God, through Christ ...

I was, for weeks, a poor, broken-hearted mourner, traveling through the darkness and misery of doubts and fears.

I finally found that change of heart which comes by 'casting all one's care' upon God, and by having faith in Jesus Christ, as the Redeemer, Friend, and Savior of those who diligently seek him. After this, I saw the world in a new light ...

I loved all mankind-slaveholders not excepted; though I abhorred slavery more than ever ...


... I gathered scattered pages of the Bible from the filthy street gutters, and washed and dried them, that ... I might get a word or two of wisdom from them."


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