Brief biography of and quotes from Frederick Douglass.

1. Frederick Douglass

2. Biography
• Born 1818 into slavery in Maryland, on the eastern shore of the Chesapeake
Bay.
• “I have no accurate knowledge of my age, never having seen any authentic record
containing it.”
• Separated from his mother at an early age; lives with his maternal
grandmother on a plantation – the Wye House Plantation.
• Begins to learn the alphabet at 12 years old.

3. Portrait of Frederick
Douglass, Age 29.

4. Wye House Plantation

5. Publication of Narrative
• Published in 1845, Narrative of the Life of
Frederick Douglass, an American Slave became an
immediate bestseller.
• William Lloyd Garrison, a Northern
abolitionist and publisher of The Liberator,
mentors Douglass.
• Douglass begins touring, giving abolition
speeches at conventions across the Northeast.

6. Douglass Travels to Ireland
• "Eleven days and a half gone and I have crossed three thousand miles of the
perilous deep. Instead of a democratic government, I am under a monarchical
government. Instead of the bright, blue sky of America, I am covered with the soft,
grey fog of the Emerald Isle [Ireland]. I breathe, and lo! the chattel [slave] becomes
a man. I gaze around in vain for one who will question my equal humanity, claim me
as his slave, or offer me an insult. I employ a cab—I am seated beside white
people—I reach the hotel—I enter the same door—I am shown into the same
parlour—I dine at the same table—and no one is offended... I find myself regarded
and treated at every turn with the kindness and deference paid to white people.”

7. Douglass on Women’s Rights
• “In this denial of the right to participate in
government, not merely the degradation of
woman and the perpetuation of a great
injustice happens, but the maiming and
repudiation of one-half of the moral and
intellectual power of the government of the
world.” – Seneca Falls Convention

8. Douglass on Lincoln
• "Though Mr. Lincoln shared the prejudices of
his white fellow-countrymen against the Negro,
it is hardly necessary to say that in his heart of
hearts he loathed and hated slavery...."

9. Frederick Douglass House, D.C.

10. Douglass on America
• "Whether we turn to the declarations of the past, or to the professions of
the present, the conduct of the nation seems equally hideous and revolting.
America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself
to be false to the future.“

11. What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July?
What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of
July?
I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross
injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration
is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness,
swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your
denunciation of tyrants, brass-fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and
equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and
thanksgivings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are, to Him, mere
bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy-a thin veil to cover up crimes
which would disgrace a nation of savages.