“held Ireland within the grasp of his strong hand, and [that he] could lead it whithersoever he would.”
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Frederick Douglass
Frederick Douglass was an American social reformer, abolitionist, orator, writer, and statesman. He was "the most important leader of the movement for African-American civil rights in the 19th century".
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culture · American abolitionist (1818–1895) · journalist · diplomat · writer · editor · suffragist · abolitionist · orator · caulker · politician · autobiographer · also Frederick Douglass, Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey, Frederick Augustus Washington Baly, Fred Bailey, Freddie Bailey, Douglass
Born February 1817 · Died 20 February 1895 · Q215562
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National Archives Comes Alive! Young Learners Program- Meet Frederick Douglass
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2026· 13 entries
“I was so well satisfied with the man and with the educating tendency of the conflict that I determined to go on with the recruiting.”
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“In whatever else other nations may have been great and grand, our greatness and grandeur will be found in the faithful application of the principle of perfect civil equality to the people of all races and of all creeds, and to men of no creeds.”
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“Nothing short of open recognition of the Negro”
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“I hold that a liberal and brotherly welcome to all who are likely to come to the United States is the only wise policy which this nation can adopt.”
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“What I want to see before I die is a monument representing the negro, not couchant on his knees like a four-footed animal, but erect on his feet like a man.”
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“will ever cherish a grateful remembrance of [Grant”
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“much more ex post facto bitterness than reality”
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“I see much here to remind me of my former condition, and I confess I should be ashamed to lift up my voice against American slavery, but that I know the cause of humanity is one the world over. He who really and truly feels for the American slave, cannot steel his heart to the woes of others; and he who thinks himself an abolitionist, yet cannot enter into the wrongs of others, has yet to find a true foundation for his anti-slavery faith.”
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“his paper took a place in my heart second only to The Bible.”
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“I have no accurate knowledge of my age, never having seen any authentic record containing it.”
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The Guardian: ‘He became a sensation’: Manchester pays tribute to abolitionist Frederick Douglass
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Public attention spiked: 8,514 Wikipedia readers in one day, 3.7× the usual 2,288, with 4 article edits. Editors noted: inserted quotation marks and source
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2025· 1 entry
Upon her death, Assing bequeathed Douglass a $13,000 trust fund (equivalent to $466,000 in 2025), a "large album", and his choice of books from her library.
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2024· 1 entry
Yahoo: Frederick Douglass: In Five Speeches Streaming: Watch & Stream Online via HBO Max
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2023· 2 entries
The first statue of him in Europe was unveiled in High Street in Belfast
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FactCheck.org rated the claim ““As a matter of fact, you probably also know that Frederick Douglass, who went and worked with Abraham Lincoln to emancipate the people of color in this country, said he would never be anything but a Republican."” Misleading.
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2021· 2 entries
“A variety of collaborative projects are currently [in 2021] underway to commemorate Frederick Douglass's journey and visit to Ireland in the 19th century.”
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However, suggests that Douglass in fact boarded the train at the Canton Depot of the Philadelphia, Wilmington, and Baltimore Railroad on Boston Street, in the Canton neighborhood of Baltimore, further east
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2020· 1 entry
FactCheck.org rated the claim “"Democrats just destroyed" statue of Frederick Douglass in Rochester, New York.” Unsupported.
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2009· 1 entry
“Frederick Douglass (1817–1895)”
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2004· 1 entry
Awarded National Association of Black Journalists Hall of Fame (2004).
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2003· 1 entry
Was listed on the National Register of Historic Places
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1982· 1 entry
“He who is struck must himself cry out.”
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1895· 11 entries
Died 1895-02-20.
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“The Republican Party is the ship and all else is the sea around us.”
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“The life of the nation is secure only while the nation is honest, truthful, and virtuous.”
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“Original: «I knew that however bad the Republican party was, the Democratic party was much worse. The elements of which the Republican party was composed gave better ground for the ultimate hope of the success of the colored man's cause than those of the Democratic party.”
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“The man who is right is a majority. We, who have God and conscience on our side, have a majority against the universe.”
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“You have seen how a man was made a slave; you shall see how a slave was made a man.”
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“Original: «Your wickedness and cruelty committed in this respect on your fellow creatures, are greater than all the stripes you have laid upon my back or theirs. It is an outrage upon the soul, a war upon the immortal spirit, and one for which you must give account at the bar of our common Father and Creator.”
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“I know there is a hope in religion; I know there is faith and I know there is prayer about religion and necessary to it, but God is most glorified when there is peace on earth and good will towards men.”
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“I knew that however bad the Republican party was, the Democratic party was much worse. The elements of which the Republican party was composed gave better ground for the ultimate hope of the success of the colored man's cause than those of the Democratic party.”
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“If the Republican party shall fail to carry out this purpose, God will raise up another party that will be faithful.”
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“There is something about Hayti which we have to deplore, and so there is about the United States. Let us go back 100 years and look at Hayti, and we find it surrounded by slavery and the whole Caribbean Sea reddened by the curse.”
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1894· 2 entries
Douglass said, "I hope and trust all will come out right in the end, but the immediate future looks dark and troubled
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“I hope and trust all will come out right in the end, but the immediate future looks dark and troubled. I cannot shut my eyes to the ugly facts before me.”
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1892· 3 entries
Haiti made Douglass a co-commissioner of its pavilion at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago
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Douglass constructed rental housing for blacks, now known as Douglass Place, in the Fells Point area of Baltimore
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At an Indianapolis conference convened by Bishop Henry McNeal Turner, Douglass spoke out against the separatist movements, urging African Americans to stick it out
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1889· 1 entry
President Benjamin Harrison appointed Douglass as the United States's minister resident (effectively the U
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1884· 1 entry
Douglass married Helen Pitts, a white suffragist and abolitionist from Honeoye, New York
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1881· 8 entries
Career landmark: Washington, D.C. Recorder of Deeds (1881).
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In his sixties, Douglass published Life and Times of Frederick Douglass, which he revised in 1892
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Trying unsuccessfully to raise money to support a John Brown professorship at Storer, to be held by a black man
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Douglass shared a stage at Storer College in Harpers Ferry with Andrew Hunter, the prosecutor who secured Brown's conviction and execution
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At Storer College in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, Douglass delivered a speech praising John Brown and revealing unknown information about their relationship, including their meeting in an abandoned stone quarry near Cha
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Douglass published the final edition of his autobiography, The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass, which he updated in 1892
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Was appointed Recorder of Deeds for the District of Columbia
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And revised in 1892, three years before his death, the book covers his life up to those dates
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1877· 1 entry
Douglass visited his former enslaver Thomas Auld on his deathbed, and the two men reconciled
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1876· 1 entry
Douglass delivered the keynote speech at the unveiling of the Emancipation Memorial in Washington's Lincoln Park
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1874· 1 entry
Just a few months after Douglass became its president in late March
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1872· 2 entries
Douglass's third Rochester home, on South Avenue, burned down; arson was suspected
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Douglass became the first African American nominated for Vice President of the United States, as Victoria Woodhull's running mate on the Equal Rights Party ticket
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1870· 1 entry
Douglass started his last newspaper, the New National Era, attempting to hold his country to its commitment to equality
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1865· 1 entry
Outlawed slavery, "except as a punishment for crime
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1863· 2 entries
Declared the freedom of all slaves in Confederate-held territory
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On the treatment of black soldiers and in 1864 on "how to mobilize the southern slaves of the Confederate states so that they could contribute to the war effort"
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1860· 1 entry
Douglass delivered a speech before the Scottish Anti-Slavery Society in Glasgow, "The Constitution of the United States: is it pro-slavery or anti-slavery
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1859· 1 entry
Douglass met with radical abolitionists John Brown, George DeBaptiste, and others at William Webb's house in Detroit to discuss emancipation
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1856· 1 entry
Seeking permission to translate My Bondage and My Freedom into German
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1855· 1 entry
Douglass published My Bondage and My Freedom
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1853· 1 entry
Was a prominent attendee of the radical abolitionist National African American Convention in Rochester
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1852· 2 entries
Douglass delivered an address in Corinthian Hall at a meeting organized by the Rochester Ladies' Anti-Slavery Society
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At the Corinthian Hall of Rochester, he sharply criticized the attitude of religious people who kept silent about slavery, and he charged that ministers committed a "blasphemy" when they taught it as sanctioned by religi
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1851· 2 entries
"shortly after his announced change of opinion", Douglass delivered a speech titled, "Is the United States Constitution For or Against Slavery"
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Merged the North Star with Gerrit Smith's Liberty Party paper to form Frederick Douglass' Paper, which was published until 1859
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1850· 1 entry
Douglass was elected the vice president of the American League of Colored Laborers, the first black labor union in the United States, which he had also helped found
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1848· 1 entry
Douglass was the only black person to attend the Seneca Falls Convention, the first women's rights convention, in upstate New York
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1847· 2 entries
Using £500 (equivalent to $44,848 in 2025) given to him by English supporters, Douglass started publishing his first abolitionist newspaper, the North Star, from the basement of the Memorial AME Zion Church in Rochester,
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Douglass explained to Garrison, "I have no love for America, as such; I have no patriotism
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1846· 1 entry
Douglass met with Thomas Clarkson, one of the last living British abolitionists, who had persuaded Parliament to abolish slavery in Britain's colonies
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1843· 1 entry
Douglass joined other speakers in the American Anti-Slavery Society's "Hundred Conventions" project, a six-month tour at meeting halls throughout the eastern and midwestern United States
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1841· 1 entry
At a lecture that Garrison gave in Liberty Hall, New Bedford
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1840· 1 entry
Douglass delivered a speech in Elmira, New York, then a station on the Underground Railroad, in which a black congregation would form years later, becoming the region's largest church by 1940
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1839· 1 entry
Which helped him to hone his oratorical skills
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1838· 3 entries
By a black Presbyterian minister, just eleven days after Douglass had reached New York
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Douglass successfully escaped by boarding a northbound train of the Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad in Baltimore
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Douglass became a national leader of the abolitionist movement in Massachusetts and New York and gained fame for his oratory and incisive antislavery writings
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1837· 1 entry
Douglass met and fell in love with Anna Murray, a free black woman in Baltimore about five years his senior
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1835· 1 entry
Hugh Auld hired Douglass out to William Gardiner to be a ship caulker in his shipyard in Fell's Point, Baltimore
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1833· 1 entry
Thomas Auld took Douglass back from Hugh ("[a]s a means of punishing Hugh," Douglass later wrote)
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1826· 1 entry
Douglass was given to Lucretia Auld, wife of Thomas Auld, who sent him to serve Thomas's brother Hugh Auld and his wife Sophia Auld in Baltimore
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1817· 1 entry
Born 1817-02.
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