365 Days of Facts

Frederick Douglass was born into slavery in or around 1818 in Talbot County, Maryland. Douglass was not sure of his birth date but it is most often recognized on February 14.

One slaveholder’s wife taught him the alphabet, and then he taught himself to read and write. When he could, he taught other slaves to read using the Bible, but this was often met with harsh punishment.

Frederick Douglass

Douglass escaped to New England in 1838 and become an abolitionist, speaker, and author.

In his “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass,” he wrote: “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.”

He also wrote “Thus is slavery the enemy of both the slave and the slaveholder.”

After the Emancipation Proclamation, he worked tirelessly for equal rights.

In 1867, Douglass said: “A man’s rights rest in three boxes. The ballot box, jury box and the cartridge box. Let no man be kept from the ballot box because of his color. Let no woman be kept from the ballot box because of her sex.”

He traveled to give lectures up until his death fighting for progress along the way. He is quoted as saying “if there is not struggle, there is no progress.“

He made a great deal of civil rights progress and also built housing for freed slaves in the Mid-Atlantic Region.