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Frederick Douglass Abolitionist

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I am writing this to convince my classmates to choose Frederick Douglas to be on the front of our new government building. Frederick Douglass was an editor, orator, and activist who was the foremost African American leader of the 19th century in the United States. Frederick Douglass was born a slave around 1817 in Tuckahoe, Maryland. In 1825, Douglass was separated from his mother and sent to Baltimore, where he worked as a house servant and was taught to read and write by his sympathetic mistress, against her husband’s advice. After eight years, he was sent back to the country to work as a field hand. After an unsuccessful attempt to escape, he was returned to Baltimore, where he worked in the shipyards as a caulker. Still determined to escape, …show more content…

He became a member of the abolitionist American Anti-Slavery Society and subscriber to The Liberator, a paper devoted to critical attacks on southern slaveholders. Most of the members of the society were white, but they happily welcomed Douglass, who had become a preacher at Zion Methodist Church in New Bedford. He soon began writing for The Liberator, publishing an article in 1839 opposing the efforts of the American Colonization Society to purchase freedom for slaves and send them back to Africa. Two years later Douglass met William Lloyd Garrison, a leader in the revolutionary movement at an American Anti-Slavery Society meeting on Nantucket Island. Douglas gave a speech—his first—at this gathering. Garrison was impressed by Douglass' moving account of his life as a …show more content…

He is most known for his use of his words to fight for the freedom and rights of African Americans. He used his oratory and writing skills throughout his life to communicate his desire to free African American slaves which led to the Emancipation Proclamation brought by President Abraham Lincoln. He then advocated for equal rights and opportunities for his fellow African Americans as a Civil Rights leader. He published “The North Star” and “Frederick Douglass’ Paper to convey his message. He used his oratory skills until the day he died when he came home to his wife after a women’s rights meeting and suddenly died of a massive heart attack. Douglass knew how special he was. Whenever he saw the opportunity, in his speeches and writings, he used his own symbolism against slavery and the brutality of human

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