What Is Frederick Douglass Propaganda

Frederick Douglass

Overcoming many obstacles, Frederick Douglass became a very influential African American in the antislavery movement. Growing up a slave, he lived the harsh lifestyle that many African Americans were suffering through. However, he escaped from slavery.. After his escape, he donated his life work to support the extinction of slavery in America. Using his personal, powerful slave stories from his horrifying childhood, he was able to influence many listeners. His published literary works, such as newspapers and autobiographies, were used as anti slavery propaganda. Douglass even advised and worked with prominent people such as William Lloyd Garrison and multiple presidents. Through this variety of ways of impact, Frederick Douglass

At a young age, he realized the power of reading and writing through The Columbian Orator, by Caleb Bingham, and knew that these skills could help him attain freedom. (Douglass 35). He learned to write originally from Sophia Auld, the wife of one of his masters. When she stopped teaching him, he further pursued this education by giving up food in exchange for further teachings from the white children in his neighborhood. At the age of twenty, Frederick Douglass escaped. Disguised as a sailor, he boarded a train and took the new name of Frederick Douglas, as he had priorly been Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey (Notable Black American Men). Though he was faced with future challenges such as being booed off the stage, getting beaten by riots, having his house burned down by suspected arsonists, as well as verbal abuse, his escape from slavery, and eventual legal purchase of freedom, marked the start of Douglass’s new life; a life that he donated to the cause of

Douglass’s speeches caused compassion and sympathy to be felt for slaves by people distant from slavery itself. He called out the fact that prejudice and discrimination clouded the so-called-Christian lives many proslavery citizens claimed to be living. (Feminist Writers). He was able to express feelings as well as the injustice of the whole situation in understandable arguments with clear reason behind them. The abuse and immorality of slavery was impossible to deny after hearing or reading Douglass’s works.

Not only did Frederick Douglass write and speak to make a better future for African Americans, he personally had a part of creating it. He was a recruiter of African American soldiers in the civil war. He explained that white Americans might accept them if they were contributors to society. He advised Abraham Lincoln that black troops should be raised, and was a main reason that the first black regiment, the 54th, was created. President Rutherford B. Hayes appointed him U.S Marshal for the District of Columbia, and thus Douglas paved the way for blacks holding positions in