The songs represent the sorrows of his heart; and he is relieved by them." (Douglass, Chpt 2) The similarities to today are striking
He states, "Is it that slavery is not divine; that God did not establish it; that our doctors of divinity are mistaken? There is blasphemy in the thought. That which is inhuman cannot be divine" (Douglass, 1852)
If it does not open the eyes of this people, they must be petrified into eternal sleep." A British reviewer marveled at Douglass, "a fugitive slave, as but yesterday, escaped from a bondage that doomed him to ignorance and degradation, [who] now stands up and rebukes oppression with a dignity and a fervor scarcely less glowing than that which Paul addressed to Agrippa" (Pioneer, 1845; pg
As abolitionist propaganda, they were unparalleled. Douglass's narratives, arguably the best, exemplified not only the highly political nature of these autobiographies, but also the traditions from which they sprang: black abolitionism, black activism, and social reform (Nichols, 11-89)
My friends, let it not be quieted, for upon you the slaves look for help. There will be no outbreaks, no insurrections, whilst you continue this excitement: let it cease, and the crimes that would follow cannot be told (Blassingame, 1:4)
He wrote scathing editorials on a variety of topics, slavery being just one of his targets. About the need to be adamantly concerned about the plight of slaves, he wrote, "Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground" (Connery 156)
For example, Douglass came under disapproval by many people because his friends had ultimately purchased his freedom from his owner, so he no longer faced the very real danger of capture and return to slavery. Some abolitionists felt that no man had the right to hold people as property, and so no man had the right to sell another man, and so Douglass' purchase, even by his friends, dishonored the very moral fiber of what they believed in (Huggins 34)
Douglass believed in the rights of all, and overlooked differences to find commonalities among races, among the sexes, and among people everywhere. Douglass was also one of very few men who actually openly supported the movement (Kolmer), which is another reason his support is still remembered and honored to this day
The women's rights movement did not really begin in American until the mid-1800s, although there had been talk about women's rights even before the Revolutionary War, by American leaders such as Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson. John Adams fought to include women as part of the voting majority during the Revolutionary War, but was voted down by his colleagues in 1776 (Langley and Fox 20-25)
Another historian writes, "Suffragists had actively supported the Republican Party during the Civil War and had expected to be rewarded with the franchise afterward. But this had not happened" (Newman 4)
Thus, he made his position on women's rights clear from the very start of the movement, and he continued to support it in varying degrees throughout his lifetime. In fact, he also called himself a "women's rights man" in his newspaper (Strauss 176), and supported women because so many of them had supported the abolition of slavery
Overall, Garrison argues that since no legal protection existed for slaves, "any amount of cruelty may be inflicted upon them with impunity." Thus, "Is it possible for the human mind to conceive of a more horrible state of society?" (Jacobs, 11)
The task of understanding the value and importance of Douglass's book cannot be undertaken without first establishing how his book fits into the genre it represents, namely slave narratives. In turn, slave narratives are examples of narrative theory, one of the most expanding fields of contemporary literary history (Davis, Gates 147)
She was an excellent storyteller who deeply influenced Douglass especially as far as his public career. In addition to listening to her folk tales, on Sundays and religious holidays Douglass listened to slave preachers using "rich phrases, folk poetry, and vivid illustrations" in order to mobilize and touch the slaves (Lampe 4)
Frederick Douglass and Voltaire Frederick Douglass' view of mankind in Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass is harsher because it is real. For example, in one scene, Douglass describes how while the slaves are "nearly perishing with hunger, when food in abundance lay mouldering in the safe and smoke-house" (Douglass 96), the "pious mistress and her husband would kneel every morning, and pray that God would bless them in blanket and store!" (96)
In a clever use of illusions, Douglass uses the Virginia tavern to represent the nation. He writes of the tavern, "The house is large, and its style imposing, but time and dissipation, unfailing in their results, have made ineffaceable marks upon it, and it must, in the common course of events, soon be numbered with the things that were" (Douglass)
Frederick Douglass Short Biography on the Life of Frederick Douglass Frederick Douglass, born a slave, was the first African-American leader and abolitionist in American history (McElrath 2007, UXL Newsmakers 2005)
After delivering a speech at the National Council of Women on February 20, 1895, Douglass succumbed to heart failure at his Cedar Hill home in Anascotia, Washington DC (McElrath). Frederick Douglass wrote lyrically about the ocean on account of his escape as an impersonator of a free African-American sailor (Rice 2006)
' I would then make the letters which I had been so fortunate as to learn, and ask him to beat that. In this way I got a good many lessons in writing, which it is quite possible I should never have gotten in any other way" (Douglass, Chapter 7)
She worked as hard as a man but was not rewarded for her labor, monetarily, because she was a slave according to the letter of the law. The efforts of her labor were ignored because supposedly a woman 'couldn't work' due to the fragility of her sex: "Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain't I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man - when I could get it - and bear the lash as well!" (Truth, 1841) Truth's experiences show how social institutions are not fair, and can limit opportunity based upon a person's gender or race, or both