Frederick Douglass Research Paper

Frederick Douglass Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey, better known as Frederick Douglass, defined the Civil War and the Civil Rights Movement in his writing. His life as a slave and his escape from slavery inspired many blacks and whites to join the Anti-Slavery movement. Douglass wrote Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, My Bondage; My freedom, and many essays in weekly journals (Garrison 10). Frederick Douglass was born to slave Harriet Bailey. His father was an anonymous white man. Douglass was born some day in February, 1818. As a child, he spent most of his life split between Baltimore and St. Michaels in Maryland (McDowell). In the year of 1825, Douglass’s mom died, and he was sent to live in the Aulds house. He spent his years there working as a servant. At age 15, Douglass returned to his original master. A year had not passed before

The debate about slavery started to worsen. Slavery in The South was ramped. In the year of 1852, Douglass gave his famous speech ‘What to a Slave is the Fourth of July?’ (Douglass xxxiii). In 1859, a warrant for Douglass’s arrest was issued, for conspiracy of invading Harper’s Ferry, Virginia. Douglass returned in 1860 to help campaign for Abraham Lincoln and show his full support of him as president. A little under a year later the Civil War broke out. Douglass had been waiting for a war to end slavery since he was little. Douglass proceeded to persuade Lincoln into letting blacks fight in the war and became a recruiting officer for the Union Army (Douglass xxxiii). After the assassination of Lincoln, Douglass became a ‘lyceum’ lecturer, which according to Webster Dictionary, is someone who speaks in a lecturing hall. Douglass mainly focused on ‘Black Suffrage’ in the south. Douglass began to lose friends when he deliberately pushed aside ‘Women's suffrage’ and only focused on ‘Black men’s suffrage’ (Douglass