Jump to content
Main menu Navigation ●Main page ●Contents ●Current events ●Random article ●About Wikipedia ●Contact us ●Donate Contribute ●Help ●Learn to edit ●Community portal ●Recent changes ●Upload file
●Create account ●Log in ●Create account ● Log in Pages for logged out editors learn more ●Contributions ●Talk
View source for Frederick Douglass

●Article ●Talk ●Read ●View source ●View history Tools Actions ●Read ●View source ●View history General ●What links here ●Related changes ●Upload file ●Special pages ●Page information ●Get shortened URL ●Download QR code ●Wikidata item Appearance ← Frederick Douglass You do not have permission to edit this page, for the following reason:
This page is currently semi-protected so that only established, registered users can edit it.
Why is the page protected?

While most articles can be edited by anyone, semi-protection is sometimes necessary to prevent vandalism to popular pages.
The reason for protection can be found in the protection log. If there are no relevant entries in the protection log, the page may have been moved after being protected.
What can I do?

If you have a user account, log in first. If you do not yet have an account, you may create one; after 4 days and 10 edits, you will be able to edit semi-protected pages.
Discuss this page with others.
For move-protected pages, see requested moves.
Request that the page's protection level be reduced.
Find out more about how to get started editing Wikipedia.
If you have noticed an error or have a suggestion for a simple, non-controversial change, you can submit an edit request by clicking the button below and following the instructions. An established user may then make the change on your behalf. Please check the talk page first in case the issue is already being discussed.
Submit an edit request
If you wrote any text, please save it temporarily to your device until you can edit this page.
You can view and copy the source of this page:
{{short description|African-American social reformer, writer, and abolitionist (c. 1818–1895)}}
{{hatnote|For other uses and other people with similar names, see [[Frederick Douglass (disambiguation)]].}}
{{pp-vandalism |small=yes}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=July 2024}}
{{infobox officeholder
| name                = Frederick Douglass
| image               = Frederick Douglass (circa 1879).jpg
| birth_name          = Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey
| office              = [[United States Minister Resident to Haiti]]
| appointer           = [[Benjamin Harrison]]
| term_start          = November 14, 1889
| term_end            = July 30, 1891
| predecessor         = [[John E. W. Thompson]]
| successor           = [[John S. Durham (ambassador)|John S. Durham]]
| birth_date          = {{circa}} February 1817 or 1818{{efn|name="birthdate"}}
| birth_place         = [[Cordova, Maryland]], U.S.
| death_date          = {{Death date and age|1895|2|20|1817}}
| death_place         = [[Washington, D.C.]], U.S.
| resting_place       = [[Mount Hope Cemetery (Rochester)|Mount Hope Cemetery]], [[Rochester, New York]], U.S.
| occupation          = {{flatlist|
* [[Abolitionism in the United States|Abolitionist]]
* [[suffragist]]
* author
* editor
* diplomat
}}
| party               = [[Republican Party (United States)|Republican]]
| spouse              = {{ubl|{{marriage|[[Anna Murray Douglass|Anna Murray]]|1838|1882|end=died}}|{{marriage|[[Helen Pitts Douglass|Helen Pitts]]|1884}}}}
| relatives           = [[Douglass family]]
| signature           = Frederick Douglass signature.svg
| caption             = Douglass in 1879
}}
'''Frederick Douglass''' (born '''Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey''', {{circa|February 1817}} or February 1818{{efn|name="birthdate"|Douglass estimated that he was born in February 1817.<ref name="Life1882p2">{{Cite book |last=Douglass |first=Frederick |title=Life and Times of Frederick Douglass, Written by Himself, His Early Life as a Slave, His Escape from Bondage, and His Complete History to the Present Time |title-link=Life and Times of Frederick Douglass |date=1881 |publisher=Christian Age Office |location=London |page=[https://archive.org/details/lifeandtimesfre00douggoog/page/n24/mode/2up 2]}}</ref> In ''Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom'', p. 9, [[David W. Blight]] writes that "a handwritten inventory of slaves, kept by his owner at birth, Aaron Anthony, recorded 'Frederick Augustus, son of Harriet, Feby. 1818.'" This fact was originally revealed in 1980 by Dickson J. Preston in ''Young Frederick Douglass'', p. 36.<ref name="Preston">{{Cite book |last=McFeely |first=William S. |author-link=William S. McFeely |url=https://archive.org/details/frederickdouglass00will_0 |title=Frederick Douglass |date=1991 |publisher=W. W. Norton & Company |isbn=978-0-393-02823-2 |location=New York |page=[https://archive.org/details/frederickdouglas00will_0/page/8 8] |url-access=registration}}</ref> Douglass celebrated his birthday on February 14, a date now observed as Douglass Day.<ref name=NYTBHM>{{Cite news |last1=Chambers |first1=Veronica |author2=Jamiel Law (ill.)|date=February 25, 2021 |title=How Negro History Week Became Black History Month and Why It Matters Now |language=en-US |work=[[The New York Times]] |url=https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/us/history-of-black-history-month.html |access-date=February 14, 2022 |issn=0362-4331}}</ref>}}&nbsp;– February 20, 1895) was an American [[social reform]]er, [[Abolitionism in the United States|abolitionist]], orator, writer, and statesman. He became the most important leader of the movement for [[African-American]] [[Civil rights movement (1865–1896)|civil rights]] in the 19th century.

After escaping from [[slavery in Maryland]] in 1838, Douglass became a national leader of the [[Abolitionism in the United States|abolitionist movement]] in [[Massachusetts]] and [[New York (state)|New York]], during which he gained fame for his oratory<ref>[[Willard B. Gatewood|Gatewood, Willard B. Jr.]] 1981.『Frederick Douglass and the Building of a 'Wall of Anti-Slavery Fire' 1845–1846. An Essay Review.』''[[The Florida Historical Quarterly]]'' 59(<span class="ltr">3</span>):340–344. {{JSTOR|30147499}}.</ref> and incisive antislavery writings. Accordingly, he was described by abolitionists in his time as a living counterexample to claims by supporters of slavery that enslaved people lacked the intellectual capacity to function as independent American citizens.<ref>Stewart, Roderick M. 1999. "The Claims of Frederick Douglass Philosophically Considered." ''Frederick Douglass: A Critical Reader'', B. E. Lawson and F. M. Kirkland, eds., pp. 155–156. Wiley-Blackwell. {{ISBN|978-0-631-20578-4}}.

"Moreover, though he does not make the point explicitly, again the very fact that Douglass is ably disputing this argument on this occasion celebrating a select few's intellect and will (or moral character)—this fact constitutes a living counterexample to the narrowness of the pro-slavery definition of humans."</ref> [[Northern United States|Northerners]] at the time found it hard to believe that such a great orator had once been enslaved. It was in response to this disbelief that Douglass wrote his first autobiography.<ref>Matlack, James. 1979. "The Autobiographies of Frederick Douglass." ''Phylon (1960–)'' 40(<span class="ltr">1</span>):15–28. {{doi|10.2307/274419}}. {{JSTOR|274419}}. p. 16: "He spoke too well. ... Since he did not talk, look, or act like a slave (in the eyes of Northern audiences), Douglass was denounced as an imposter."</ref>

Douglass wrote three autobiographies, describing his experiences as an enslaved person in his ''[[Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave]]'' (1845), which became a bestseller and was influential in promoting the cause of abolition, as was his second book, ''[[My Bondage and My Freedom]]'' (1855). Following the [[American Civil War|Civil War]], Douglass was an active campaigner for the rights of freed slaves and wrote his last autobiography, ''[[Life and Times of Frederick Douglass]]''. First published in 1881 and revised in 1892, three years before his death, the book covers his life up to those dates. Douglass also actively supported [[women's suffrage]], and he held several public offices. Without his knowledge or consent, Douglass became the first African American nominated for vice president of the United States, [[1872 United States presidential election|as the running mate]] of [[Victoria Woodhull]] on the [[National Equal Rights Party|Equal Rights Party]] ticket.<ref name="VP" />

Douglass believed in [[dialogue]] and in making alliances across racial and ideological divides, as well as, after breaking with [[William Lloyd Garrison]], in the [[The Constitution of the United States: is it pro-slavery or anti-slavery?|anti-slavery interpretation]] of the [[Slavery and the United States Constitution|U.S. Constitution]].<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nOt7au3N8FUC&q=%22Let+us+have+the+Constitution,+with+its+thirteenth,+fourteenth,+and+fifteenth+amendments,+fairly+interpreted,+faithfully+executed,+and+cheerfully+obeyed.%22&pg=PA629 |title=Frederick Douglass: Selected Speeches and Writings |year=1999 |isbn=1-55652-349-1 |editor-last=Foner |editor-first=Philip |editor-link=Philip Foner |page=629 |publisher=Chicago Review Press |quote=let us have liberty, law, and justice first. Let us have the Constitution, with its thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth amendments, fairly interpreted, faithfully executed, and cheerfully obeyed in the fullness of their spirit and the completeness of their letter. |editor-last2=Taylor |editor-first2=Yuval |access-date=October 9, 2020 |archive-date=December 21, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201221122559/https://books.google.com/books?id=nOt7au3N8FUC&q=%22Let+us+have+the+Constitution%2C+with+its+thirteenth%2C+fourteenth%2C+and+fifteenth+amendments%2C+fairly+interpreted%2C+faithfully+executed%2C+and+cheerfully+obeyed.%22&pg=PA629 |url-status=live }}</ref> When radical abolitionists, under the motto "No Union with Slaveholders", criticized Douglass's willingness to engage in dialogue with slave owners, he replied: "I would unite with anybody to do right and with nobody to do wrong."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Frederick Douglass |url=https://archive.org/details/antislaverymove00douggoog |title=The Anti-Slavery Movement, A Lecture by Frederick Douglass before the Rochester Ladies' Anti-Slavery Society |publisher=Press of Lee, Mann & Company, Daily American Office |year=1855 |page=[https://archive.org/details/antislaverymove00douggoog/page/n36 33] |quote=My point here is, first, the Constitution is, according to its reading, an anti-slavery document; and, secondly, to dissolve the Union, as a means to abolish slavery, is about as wise as it would be to burn up this city, in order to get the thieves out of it. But again, we hear the motto, 'no union with slave-holders;' and I answer it, as the noble champion of liberty, [[Nathaniel Peabody Rogers|N. P. Rogers]], answered it with a more sensible motto, namely—{{'}}''No union with slave-holding''.{{'}} I would unite with anybody to do right; and with nobody to do wrong. |access-date=October 6, 2010}}</ref>

==Early life and slavery==

Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey was born into [[Slavery in the United States|slavery]] on the [[Eastern Shore of Maryland|Eastern Shore]] of the [[Chesapeake Bay]] in [[Talbot County, Maryland]]. The [[plantation]] was between [[Hillsboro, Maryland|Hillsboro]] and [[Cordova, Maryland|Cordova]];<ref name="narrative">{{Cite book |last=Frederick Douglass |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=k5c1THo4xpUC&q=autobiography%20frederick%20douglass&pg=PA16 |title=Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Written by Himself |year=1845 | publisher=Forgotten Books |isbn=978-1-60620-963-9 |access-date=October 9, 2020 |archive-date=December 17, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191217035243/https://books.google.com/books?id=k5c1THo4xpUC&pg=PA16&q=autobiography%20frederick%20douglass |url-status=live }}<br />"I was born in Tuckahoe, near Hillsborough, and about twelve miles from Easton, in Talbot County, Maryland." (Tuckahoe refers to the area west of [[Tuckahoe Creek]] in Talbot County.)</ref> his birthplace was likely his grandmother's cabin{{efn|"The old cabin, with its rail floor and rail bedsteads up stairs, and its clay floor down stairs, and its dirt chimney, and windowless sides ... was MY HOME – the only home I ever had; and I loved it, and all connected with it. The old fences around it, and the stumps in the edge of the woods near it, and the squirrels that ran, skipped, and played upon them, were objects of interest and affection. There, too, right at the side of the hut, stood the old well...." {{Cite book |last=Douglass |first=Frederick |url=http://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/douglass55/douglass55.html#p44 |title=My Bondage and My Freedom |year=1855 |access-date=November 3, 2017}}|name=|}} east of Tappers Corner and west of [[Tuckahoe Creek]].<ref>Barker, Amanda. [1996]. "[http://www.choptankriverheritage.org/douglass/ The Search for Frederick Douglass' Birthplace] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141207140622/http://www.choptankriverheritage.org/douglass/|date=December 7, 2014}}. ''Choptank River Heritage''. Retrieved June 14, 2020.

Although Barker's website devoted to the Douglass birthplace states that it could not be found with tour books and guides, that is no longer the case.</ref><ref>Barker, Don. February 4, 2014. "[https://choptankriverheritage.org/wp3/the-search-for-frederick-douglasss-birthplace/ The Search for Frederick Douglass's Birthplace] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200731214753/https://choptankriverheritage.org/wp3/the-search-for-frederick-douglasss-birthplace/ |date=July 31, 2020 }}." ''Choptank River Heritage''. Retrieved June 14, 2020.</ref><ref name=":1">"[https://web.archive.org/web/20161222223221/http://www.hstc.org/museum-gardens/frederick-douglass Frederick Douglass | Museums and Gardens]." ''Talbot Historic Society''. 2016. Archived from the [http://www.hstc.org/museum-gardens/frederick-douglass original] on December 22, 2016. Retrieved December 22, 2016.</ref> In his first autobiography, Douglass stated: "I have no accurate knowledge of my age, never having seen any authentic record containing it."<ref name="Narrative">{{Cite book |last=Frederick Douglass |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=k5c1THo4xpUC&q=autobiography%20frederick%20douglass&pg=PA16 |title=Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Written by Himself |year=1845 | publisher=Forgotten Books |isbn=978-1-60620-963-9 |access-date=October 9, 2020 |archive-date=December 17, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191217035243/https://books.google.com/books?id=k5c1THo4xpUC&pg=PA16&q=autobiography%20frederick%20douglass |url-status=live }}<br />Frederick Douglass began his own story thusly: "I was born in Tuckahoe, near Hillsborough, and about twelve miles from Easton, in Talbot County, Maryland." (Tuckahoe is not a town; it refers to the area west of [[Tuckahoe Creek]] in Talbot County.) In successive autobiographies, Douglass gave more precise estimates of when he was born, his final estimate being 1817.</ref> In successive autobiographies, he gave more precise estimates of when he was born, his final estimate being 1817.<ref name="narrative" /> However, based on the extant records of Douglass's former owner, Aaron Anthony, historian Dickson J. Preston determined that Douglass was born in February 1818.<ref name="Preston" /> Though the exact date of his birth is unknown, he chose to celebrate February 14 as his birthday, remembering that his mother called him her "Little [[Valentine's Day|Valentine]]."<ref name="Life1882p2" /><ref>[https://fcit.usf.edu/project/fd/#:~:text=Although%20Douglass'%20actual%20birthdate%20is,orator%2C%20writer%2C%20and%20statesman. February 14: Frederick Douglass] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200615000948/https://fcit.usf.edu/project/fd/#:~:text=Although%20Douglass'%20actual%20birthdate%20is,orator%2C%20writer%2C%20and%20statesman|date=June 15, 2020}}. ''The Florida Center for Instructional Technology''. US: [[University of South Florida]]. 2020.</ref>

=== Birth family ===

Douglass's mother, enslaved, was of [[African diaspora|African]] descent and his father, who may have been her master, apparently of European descent;<ref>{{Cite book |last=Davis, F. James |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9d9FC-gcWaAC&q=Who+is+Black |title=Who is Black? One Nation's Definition |year= 2010 |publisher=Penn State Press |isbn=978-0-271-04463-7 |page=5 |access-date=October 9, 2020 |archive-date=December 21, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201221122638/https://books.google.com/books?id=9d9FC-gcWaAC&q=Who+is+Black |url-status=live }}</ref> in his ''Narrative'' (1845), Douglass wrote: "My father was a white man."<ref name="narrative"/> According to [[David W. Blight]]'s 2018 biography of Douglass, "For the rest of his life he searched in vain for the name of his true father."<ref>{{cite book|author=David W. Blight|title=Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom|year=2018|publisher=Simon & Schuster|page=13}}</ref> Douglass's genetic heritage likely also included Native American.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Dickson J. Preston |title=Young Frederick Douglass: The Maryland Years |date=1980 |publisher=Johns Hopkins University Press |page=9}}</ref> Douglass said his mother Harriet Bailey gave him his name Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey and, after he escaped to the North in September 1838, he took the surname [[Douglass family|Douglass]], having already dropped his two middle names.<ref>''Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave'', ch. XI.</ref>

He later wrote of his earliest times with his mother:<ref>{{Cite book |last=Douglass |first=Frederick |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=U69bAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA10 |title=Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Written by Himself. |publisher=H.G. Collins |year=1851 |edition=6 |location=London |page=10 |access-date=October 26, 2015 |archive-date=May 10, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160510025244/https://books.google.com/books?id=U69bAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA10 |url-status=live }}</ref>

<blockquote>The opinion was also whispered that my master was my father; but of the correctness of this opinion, I know nothing. ... My mother and I were separated when I was but an infant. ... It is a common custom, in the part of Maryland from which I ran away, to part children from their mothers at a very early age. ... I do not recollect of ever seeing my mother by the light of day. She was with me in the night. She would lie down with me, and get me to sleep, but long before I waked she was gone.</blockquote>

After separation from his mother during infancy, young Frederick lived with his [[maternal grandmother]] Betsy Bailey, who was also enslaved, and his maternal grandfather Isaac, who was [[Free people of color|free]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=McFeely |first=William S. |author-link=William S. McFeely |url=https://archive.org/details/frederickdouglas00will_0 |title=Frederick Douglass |date=1991 |publisher=W. W. Norton & Company |isbn=978-0-393-02823-2 |location=New York |pages=3–5 |url-access=registration}}</ref> Betsy would live until 1849.<ref>Sterngass, Jon. 2009. ''Frederick Douglass'', (''Leaders of the Civil War era''). [[Chelsea House Publishers]]. {{ISBN|1-60413-306-6}}. p. [https://books.google.com/books?id=QMstpTuOEpkC&pg=PA16 16] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200615040201/https://books.google.ca/books?id=QMstpTuOEpkC&pg=PA16|date=June 15, 2020}}, [https://books.google.com/books?id=QMstpTuOEpkC&pg=PA132 132] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200615000946/https://books.google.ca/books?id=QMstpTuOEpkC&pg=PA132|date=June 15, 2020}}</ref> Frederick's mother remained on the plantation about {{Convert|12|miles|km|abbr=}} away, visiting Frederick only a few times before her death when he was 7 years old.

Returning much later, about 1883, to purchase land in Talbot County that was meaningful to him, he was invited to address "a colored school":

{{Poemquote|I once knew a little colored boy whose mother and father died when he was six years old. He was a slave and had no one to care for him. He slept on a dirt floor in a hovel, and in cold weather would crawl into a meal bag head foremost and leave his feet in the ashes to keep them warm. Often he would roast an ear of corn and eat it to satisfy his hunger, and many times has he crawled under the barn or stable and secured eggs, which he would roast in the fire and eat.

That boy did not wear pants like you do, but a tow linen shirt. Schools were unknown to him, and he learned to spell from an old Webster's spelling-book and to read and write from posters on cellar and barn doors, while boys and men would help him. He would then preach and speak, and soon became well known. He became Presidential Elector, United States Marshal, United States Recorder, United States diplomat, and accumulated some wealth. He wore broadcloth and didn't have to divide crumbs with the dogs under the table. That boy was Frederick Douglass.<ref>{{cite journal
|title=Fred. Douglass dead
|first=Kate
|last=Field
|author-link=Kate Field
|journal=Kate Field's Washington
|volume=11
|number=8
|date=February 23, 1895
|page=119
|url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.c2605441&view=1up&seq=155
|access-date=March 21, 2022
|archive-date=March 21, 2022
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220321013118/https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.c2605441&view=1up&seq=155
|url-status=live
}}</ref>}}

===Early learning and experience===

==== The Auld family ====
{{Slavery}}At the age of 6, Douglass was separated from his grandparents and moved to the [[Wye House]] [[Plantations in the American South|plantation]], where Aaron Anthony worked as overseer.<ref name=":1" /> After Anthony died in 1826, Douglass was given to Lucretia Auld, wife of Thomas Auld, who sent him to serve Thomas' brother Hugh Auld and his wife Sophia Auld in [[Baltimore]]. From the day he arrived, Sophia saw to it that Douglass was properly fed and clothed, and that he slept in a bed with sheets and a blanket.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book |last=Koehn |first=Nancy |title=Forged in Crisis: The Making of Five Courageous Leaders |publisher=Scribner |year=2017 |isbn=978-1-5011-7444-5 |location=New York}}</ref> Douglass described her as a kind and tender-hearted woman, who treated him "as she supposed one human being ought to treat another."<ref>Douglass, Frederick. 1845. "[[Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave#Chapters 5–7|Chapter VII]]."</ref> Douglass felt that he was lucky to be in the city, where he said enslaved people were almost [[Freedman|freemen]], compared to those on plantations.

When Douglass was about 12, Sophia Auld began teaching him the [[alphabet]]. Hugh Auld disapproved of the tutoring, feeling that [[literacy]] would encourage enslaved people to desire freedom. Douglass later referred to this as the "first decidedly [[Abolitionism|antislavery]] lecture" he had ever heard. "'Very well, thought I,'" wrote Douglass. "'Knowledge unfits a child to be a slave.' I instinctively assented to the proposition, and from that moment I understood the direct pathway from slavery to freedom."<ref>Douglass, Frederick. [1881–82] 2003. ''[[Life and Times of Frederick Douglass|Life and Times of Frederick Douglass, Written by Himself, His Early Life as a Slave, His Escape from Bondage, and His Complete History to the Present Time]]'' (''Dover Value Editions''). p. 50. [[Courier Dover Publications]]. {{ISBN|0-486-43170-3}}.</ref>

Under her husband's influence, Sophia came to believe that education and slavery were incompatible and one day snatched a newspaper away from Douglass.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Douglass |first=Frederick |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=U69bAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA10 |title=Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave. Written by Himself. |publisher=H.G. Collins |year=1851 |edition=6th |location=London |page=39 |access-date=October 26, 2015 |archive-date=May 10, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160510025244/https://books.google.com/books?id=U69bAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA10 |url-status=live }}</ref> She stopped teaching him altogether and hid all potential reading materials, including her Bible, from him.<ref name=":0" /> In his autobiography, Douglass related how he learned to read from white children in the neighborhood and by observing the writings of the men with whom he worked.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Douglass |first=Frederick |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=U69bAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA10 |title=Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave. Written by Himself. |publisher=H.G. Collins |year=1851 |edition=6 |location=London |pages=43–44 |access-date=October 26, 2015 |archive-date=May 10, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160510025244/https://books.google.com/books?id=U69bAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA10 |url-status=live }}</ref>

Douglass continued, secretly, to teach himself to read and write. He later often said, "knowledge is the pathway from slavery to freedom."<ref>[[Kwame Anthony Appiah|Appiah, Kwame Anthony]]. [2000] 2004. "Introduction." In ''[[Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave|<nowiki/>'Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave']] & [[Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl|'Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl'<nowiki/>]]''. New York: [[Modern Library]]. pp. xiii, 4.</ref> As Douglass began to read newspapers, pamphlets, political materials, and books of every description, this new realm of thought led him to question and condemn the institution of slavery. In later years, Douglass credited ''[[The Columbian Orator]]'', an anthology that he discovered at about age 12, with clarifying and defining his views on freedom and human rights. First published in 1797, the book is a classroom reader, containing essays, speeches, and dialogues, to assist students in learning reading and grammar. He later learned that his mother had also been literate, about which he would later declare:

<blockquote>I am quite willing, and even happy, to attribute any love of letters I possess, and for which I have got—despite of prejudices—only too much credit, ''not'' to my admitted Anglo-Saxon paternity, but to the native genius of my sable, unprotected, and uncultivated ''mother''—a woman, who belonged to a race whose mental endowments it is, at present, fashionable to hold in disparagement and contempt.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Douglass |first=Frederick |title=My Bondage and My Freedom |date=1855 |publisher=Miller, Orton & Mulligan |edition=1st |location=New York and Auburn |page=[https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Page:My_Bondage_and_My_Freedom_(1855).djvu/68 58]}}</ref></blockquote>

====William Freeland====
When Douglass was hired out to William Freeland, he "gathered eventually more than thirty male slaves on Sundays, and sometimes even on weeknights, in a Sabbath literacy school."<ref>[[David W. Blight|Blight, David W.]], ''Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom'', p.&nbsp;68.</ref>

====Edward Covey====
In 1833, Thomas Auld took Douglass back from Hugh ("[<span class="ltr">a</span>]s a means of punishing Hugh," Douglass later wrote). Thomas sent Douglass to work for Edward Covey, a poor farmer who had a reputation as a "slave-breaker". He [[Flagellation|whipped]] Douglass so frequently that his wounds had little time to heal. Douglass later said the frequent whippings broke his body, soul, and spirit.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Koehn |first=Nancy |title=Forged in crisis: the power of courageous leadership in turbulent times |date=2018 |isbn=978-1-5011-7445-2 |page=222|publisher=Scribner }}</ref> The 16-year-old Douglass finally rebelled against the beatings, however, and fought back. After Douglass won a physical confrontation, Covey never tried to beat him again.<ref>Bowers, Jerome. "[http://teachinghistory.org/best-practices/examples-of-historical-thinking/23495 Frederick Douglass] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110830143151/http://teachinghistory.org/best-practices/examples-of-historical-thinking/23495|date=August 30, 2011}}." ''[[Teachinghistory.org]]''. US: [[Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media]]. 2018. Retrieved June 14, 2020.</ref><ref>{{cite web |date=February 21, 2018 |title=Frederick Douglass's Vision of Manhood The Objective Standard |url=https://theobjectivestandard.com/2018/02/frederick-douglasss-vision-manhood/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210709191335/https://theobjectivestandard.com/2018/02/frederick-douglasss-vision-manhood/ |archive-date=July 9, 2021 |access-date=July 8, 2021 |website=theobjectivestandard.com}}</ref>

Recounting his beatings at Covey's farm in ''Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave'', Douglass described himself as "a man transformed into a brute!"<ref>{{Cite book |last=Douglass |first=Frederick |title=Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave |publisher=Anti-Slavery Office |year=1845 |location=Boston |page=63}}</ref> Still, Douglass came to see his physical fight with Covey as life-transforming, and introduced the story in his autobiography as such: "You have seen how a man was made a slave; you shall see how a slave was made a man."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Douglass |first=Frederick |title=Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave |publisher=Anti-Slavery Office |year=1845 |location=Boston |pages=65–66}}</ref>

==Escape from slavery==
Douglass first tried to escape from Freeland, who had hired him from his owner, but was unsuccessful. In 1837, Douglass met and fell in love with [[Anna Murray Douglass|Anna Murray]], a [[Free people of color|free black]] woman in Baltimore about five years his senior. Her free status strengthened his belief in the possibility of gaining his own freedom. Murray encouraged him and supported his efforts by aid and money.<ref name="ThompsonConyers2010PA124">{{cite book |first1=Michelle Nzadi |last1=Keita |first2=James |last2=Jones |contribution=Murray-Douglass, Anna (1813–1882) |editor1-first=Julius E. |editor1-last=Thompson |editor2-first=James L. Jr. |editor2-last=Conyers |editor3-first=Nancy J. |editor3-last=Dawson |title=The Frederick Douglass Encyclopedia |location=Santa Barbara, California |publisher=ABC-CLIO |year=2010 |isbn=978-0-313-31988-4 |page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=sTV8OsmDQPcC&pg=PA124 124]}}</ref>

[[File:Anna Murray-Douglass.jpg|thumb|upright|[[Anna Murray Douglass]], Douglass's wife for 44 years, portrait c. 1860]]

On September 3, 1838, Douglass successfully escaped by boarding a northbound train of the [[Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad]] in Baltimore.<ref>{{cite web |date=February 14, 2018 |title=Today in African-American Transportation History – 1818: Frederick Douglass Begins His Journey into History |url=https://transportationhistory.org/2018/02/14/today-in-african-american-transportation-history-1818-frederick-douglass-begins-his-journey-into-history/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200731224353/https://transportationhistory.org/2018/02/14/today-in-african-american-transportation-history-1818-frederick-douglass-begins-his-journey-into-history/ |archive-date=July 31, 2020 |access-date=February 10, 2020 |website=Transportation History |publisher=American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials}}</ref> The area where he boarded was formerly thought to be a short distance east of the train depot, in a recently developed neighborhood between the modern neighborhoods of [[Harbor East]] and [[Little Italy, Baltimore|Little Italy]]. This depot was at President and Fleet Streets, east of [[Inner Harbor|"The Basin"]] of the [[Port of Baltimore|Baltimore harbor]], on the northwest branch of the [[Patapsco River]]. Research cited in 2021, however, suggests that Douglass in fact boarded the train at the Canton Depot of the Philadelphia, Wilmington, and Baltimore Railroad on Boston Street, in the Canton neighborhood of Baltimore, further east.<ref name="foxbaltimore.com">{{cite web |title="JUNETEENTH{{!}}Historic Panels Commemorating Frederick Douglass' Escape Unveiled In Canton" |date=June 19, 2021 |url=https://foxbaltimore.com/news/local/historic-panels-commemorating-frederick-douglass-escape-in-canton |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210620054606/https://foxbaltimore.com/news/local/historic-panels-commemorating-frederick-douglass-escape-in-canton |archive-date=June 20, 2021 |access-date=June 20, 2021}}</ref><ref name="ReferenceA">{{cite web |title="Panels honoring Frederick Douglass to be unveiled at Canton waterfront" |date=June 9, 2021 |url=https://foxbaltimore.com/news/local/panels-honoring-frederick-douglass-to-be-unveiled-at-canton-waterfront |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210624201808/https://foxbaltimore.com/news/local/panels-honoring-frederick-douglass-to-be-unveiled-at-canton-waterfront |archive-date=June 24, 2021 |access-date=June 20, 2021}}</ref><ref name="baltimore.cbslocal.com">{{cite web |title="Historic Panels Commemorate Frederick Douglass' Escape From Slavery In Canton" |url=https://baltimore.cbslocal.com/video/5703188-historic-panels-commemorate-frederick-douglass-escape-from-slavery-in-canton/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210624204642/https://baltimore.cbslocal.com/video/5703188-historic-panels-commemorate-frederick-douglass-escape-from-slavery-in-canton/ |archive-date=June 24, 2021 |access-date=June 20, 2021}}</ref>

Douglass reached [[Havre de Grace, Maryland]], in [[Harford County, Maryland|Harford County]], in the northeast corner of the state, along the southwest shore of the [[Susquehanna River]], which flowed into the [[Chesapeake Bay]]. Although this placed him only some {{convert|20|mi}} from the Maryland–Pennsylvania state line, it was easier to continue by rail through Delaware, another slave state. Dressed in a sailor's [[uniform]] provided to him by Murray, who also gave him part of her savings to cover his travel costs, he carried identification papers and [[protection papers]] that he had obtained from a free black seaman.<ref name="ThompsonConyers2010PA124" /><ref>{{cite web |first=Shirley |last=Yee |date=February 11, 2007 |title=Anna Murray Douglass (c. 1813–1882) |url=http://www.blackpast.org/?q=aah/douglass-anna-murray-c-1813-1882 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210902004244/https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/douglass-anna-murray-c-1813-1882/ |archive-date=September 2, 2021 |access-date=February 27, 2011 |website=[[BlackPast.org]]}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |first=Waldo E. Jr. |last=Martin |title=The Mind of Frederick Douglass |date=1984 |publisher=University of North Carolina Press |location=Chapel Hill |isbn=978-0-8078-4148-8 |page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=bZaZbr2xox8C&pg=PA15 15]}}</ref>

Douglass crossed the wide Susquehanna River by the railroad's steam-ferry at Havre de Grace to [[Perryville, Maryland|Perryville]] on the opposite shore, in [[Cecil County, Maryland|Cecil County]], then continued by train across the state line to [[Wilmington, Delaware]], a large port at the head of the [[Delaware Bay]]. From there, because the rail line was not yet completed, he went by [[steamboat]] along the [[Delaware River]] farther northeast to the "Quaker City" of [[Philadelphia]], Pennsylvania, an anti-slavery stronghold. He continued to the safe house of abolitionist [[David Ruggles]] in [[History of New York City|New York City]]. His entire journey to freedom took less than 24 hours.<ref name="SouthCoast">{{Cite news |date=February 17, 2008 |title=Discovering Anna Murray Douglass |work=[[South Coast Today]] |url=https://www.southcoasttoday.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080217/NEWS/802170364 |url-status=live |access-date=February 27, 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110716112833/http://www.southcoasttoday.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=%2F20080217%2FNEWS%2F802170364 |archive-date=July 16, 2011}}</ref> Douglass later wrote of his arrival in New York City:

{{blockquote|I have often been asked, how I felt when first I found myself on free soil. And my readers may share the same curiosity. There is scarcely anything in my experience about which I could not give a more satisfactory answer. A new world had opened upon me. If life is more than breath, and the "quick round of blood," I lived more in one day than in a year of my slave life. It was a time of joyous excitement which words can but tamely describe. In a letter written to a friend soon after reaching New York, I said: "I felt as one might feel upon escape from a den of hungry lions." Anguish and grief, like darkness and rain, may be depicted; but gladness and joy, like the rainbow, defy the skill of pen or pencil.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Douglass |first=Frederick |title=Life and Times of Frederick Douglass, Written by Himself, His Early Life as a Slave, His Escape from Bondage, and His Complete History to the Present Time |title-link=Life and Times of Frederick Douglass |date=1881 |publisher=Christian Age Office |location=London |page=[https://archive.org/details/lifeandtimesfre00douggoog/page/n187 170]}}</ref>}}

Once Douglass had arrived, he sent for Murray to follow him north to New York. She brought the basic supplies for them to set up a home. They were married on September 15, 1838, by a black [[Presbyterian]] minister, just eleven days after Douglass had reached New York.<ref name=SouthCoast/> At first they adopted Johnson as their married name, to divert attention.<ref name="ThompsonConyers2010PA124" />

==Religious views==
As a child, Douglass was exposed to a number of religious sermons, and in his youth, he sometimes heard Sophia Auld reading the [[Bible]]. In time, he became interested in literacy; he began reading and copying bible verses, and he eventually [[Conversion to Christianity|converted to Christianity]].<ref>{{cite book |first=Ivory |last=Phillips |contribution=Christianity |editor1-first=Julius E. |editor1-last=Thompson |editor2-first=James L. Jr. |editor2-last=Conyers |editor3-first=Nancy J. |editor3-last=Dawson |title=The Frederick Douglass Encyclopedia |location=Santa Barbara, California |publisher=ABC-CLIO |year=2010 |isbn=978-0-313-31988-4 |pages=34–35}}</ref><ref name="Finkelman129">{{cite book |last=Finkelman |first=Paul |date=2006 |title=Encyclopedia of African American History, 1619–1895: From the Colonial Period to the Age of Frederick Douglass Three-volume Set |publisher=Oxford University Press |page=129}}</ref> He described this approach in his last biography, ''Life and Times of Frederick Douglass'':

<blockquote>I was not more than thirteen years old when, in my loneliness and destitution, I longed for some one to whom I could go, as to a father and protector. The preaching of a white Methodist minister, named Hanson, was the means of causing me to feel that in God I had such a friend. He thought that all men, great and small, bond and free, were sinners in the sight of God: that they were but natural rebels against his government; and that they must repent of their sins, and be reconciled to God through Christ. I cannot say that I had a very distinct notion of what was required of me, but one thing I did know well: I was wretched and had no means of making myself otherwise. I consulted a good coloured man named Charles Lawson, and in tones of holy affection he told me to pray, and to "cast all my care upon God." This I sought to do; and though for weeks I was a poor, broken-hearted mourner, traveling through doubts and fears, I finally found my burden lightened, and my heart relieved. I loved all mankind, slaveholders not excepted, though I abhorred slavery more than ever. I saw the world in a new light, and my great concern was to have everybody converted. My desire to learn increased, and especially did I want a thorough acquaintance with the contents of the Bible.<ref>{{cite book |last=Douglass |first=Frederick |title=Life and Times of Frederick Douglass, Written by Himself, His Early Life as a Slave, His Escape from Bondage, and His Compete History to the Present Time |title-link=Life and Times of Frederick Douglass |date=1881 |publisher=Christian Age Office |location=London |page=[https://archive.org/details/lifeandtimesfre00douggoog/page/n85/mode/2up 63]}}</ref><ref>In the Citadel Press facsimile edition (Kensington Publishing Corp., 1983), the quotation is on pp. 82-83. In this version, in the first sentence, the first comma is before rather than after "when", and "coloured" is spelled "colored".</ref></blockquote>

Douglass was mentored by Rev. Charles Lawson, and, early in his activism, he often included biblical allusions and religious metaphors in his speeches. Although a believer, he strongly criticized religious hypocrisy<ref name="lib.rochester.edu">{{cite web |date=February 4, 2011 |title=Frederick Douglass Project: "Fourth of July" Speech |url=http://www.lib.rochester.edu/index.cfm?page=2945 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110204070311/http://www.lib.rochester.edu/index.cfm?page=2945 |archive-date=February 4, 2011 |access-date=March 15, 2019}}</ref> and accused slaveholders of "[[wickedness]]", lack of morality, and failure to follow the [[Golden Rule]]. In this sense, Douglass distinguished between the "Christianity of Christ" and the "Christianity of America" and considered religious slaveholders and clergymen who defended slavery as the most brutal, sinful, and cynical of all who represented "wolves in sheep's clothing".<ref name="Finkelman129" /><ref>''Love of God, Love of Man, Love of Country''. Delivered at Market Hall, New York City, October 22, 1847.</ref>

In ''[[What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?]]'', an oration Douglass gave in the Corinthian Hall of Rochester,<ref>{{cite web |title=What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July? |url=https://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/what-to-the-slave-is-the-fourth-of-july/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200705134303/https://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/what-to-the-slave-is-the-fourth-of-july/ |archive-date=July 5, 2020 |access-date=July 5, 2020 |website=Teaching American History}}</ref> he sharply criticized the attitude of religious people who kept silent about slavery, and he charged that ministers committed a "[[blasphemy]]" when they taught it as sanctioned by religion. He considered that a law passed to support slavery was "one of the grossest infringements of Christian Liberty" and said that pro-slavery clergymen within the American Church "stripped the love of God of its beauty, and leave the throne of religion a huge, horrible, repulsive form", and "an abomination in the sight of God".<ref name="lib.rochester.edu" />

Of ministers like John Chase Lord, Leonard Elijah Lathrop, [[Ichabod Spencer]], and [[Orville Dewey]], he said that they taught, against the Scriptures, that "we ought to obey man's law before the law of God". He further asserted, "in speaking of the American church, however, let it be distinctly understood that I mean the great mass of the religious organizations of our land. There are exceptions, and I thank God that there are. Noble men may be found, scattered all over these Northern States ... [[Henry Ward Beecher]] of Brooklyn, [[Samuel J. May]] of Syracuse, and my esteemed friend [Robert R. Raymonde]".<ref name="lib.rochester.edu" />

He maintained that "upon these men lies the duty to inspire our ranks with high religious faith and zeal, and to cheer us on in the great mission of the slave's redemption from his chains". In addition, he called religious people to embrace abolitionism, stating, "let the religious press, the pulpit, the Sunday school, the conference meeting, the great ecclesiastical, missionary, Bible and tract associations of the land array their immense powers against slavery and slave-holding; and the whole system of crime and blood would be scattered to the winds."<ref name="lib.rochester.edu" />

During his visits to the United Kingdom between 1846 and 1848, Douglass asked British Christians never to support American churches that permitted slavery,<ref>{{cite book |first=Oleta |last=Prinsloo |contribution=Abolitionists |editor1-first=Julius E. |editor1-last=Thompson |editor2-first=James L. Jr. |editor2-last=Conyers |editor3-first=Nancy J. |editor3-last=Dawson |title=The Frederick Douglass Encyclopedia |location=Santa Barbara, California |publisher=ABC-CLIO |year=2010 |isbn=978-0-313-31988-4 |page=2}}</ref> and he expressed his happiness to know that a group of ministers in Belfast had refused to admit slaveholders as members of the Church.

On his return to the United States, Douglass founded the ''North Star'', a weekly publication with the motto "Right is of no sex, Truth is of no color, God is the Father of us all, and we are all Brethren." In his 1848 "Letter to Thomas Auld", Douglass denounced his former slaveholder for leaving Douglass's family illiterate:

{{blockquote|Your wickedness and cruelty committed in this respect on your fellow-creatures, are greater than all the stripes you have laid upon my back, or theirs. It is an outrage upon the soul—a war upon the immortal spirit, and one for which you must give account at the bar of our common Father and Creator.<ref name="AuldLetter"/>}}

Sometimes considered a precursor of a [[Nondenominational Christianity|non-denominational]] [[liberation theology]],<ref>{{cite book |editor-last=Lee |editor-first=Maurice S. |date=2009 |title=The Cambridge Companion to Frederick Douglass |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |page=69}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |first=Reginald F. |last=Davis |date=2005 |title=Frederick Douglass: A Precursor of Liberation Theology |location=Macon, Georgia |publisher=Mercer University Press |isbn=978-0-86554-925-8}}</ref> Douglass was a deeply spiritual man, as his home continues to show. The fireplace mantle features busts of two of his favorite philosophers, [[David Friedrich Strauss]], author of ''The Life of Jesus'', and [[Ludwig Feuerbach]], author of ''[[The Essence of Christianity]]''. In addition to several Bibles and books about various religions in the library, images of angels and Jesus are displayed, as well as interior and exterior photographs of Washington's [[Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church]].<ref name="religionnews.com" /> Throughout his life, Douglass had linked that individual experience with social reform, and, according to [[John Stauffer (professor)|John Stauffer]], he, like other Christian abolitionists, followed practices such as abstaining from tobacco, alcohol and other substances that he believed corrupted body and soul.<ref>{{cite news |last=Stauffer |first=John |author-link=John Stauffer (professor) |date=January 8, 2013 |title=What Every American Should Know About Frederick Douglass, Abolitionist Prophet |work=HuffPost |url=http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-stauffer/frederick-douglass-the-prophet_b_2425712.html |url-status=live |access-date=February 20, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140227175851/http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-stauffer/frederick-douglass-the-prophet_b_2425712.html |archive-date=February 27, 2014}}</ref> Douglass stated himself that he was a [[teetotalism|teetotaler]].<ref>{{cite web|last=Douglass|first=Frederick|title=Intemperance and Slavery: An Address Delivered in Cork, Ireland, on October 20, 1845|website=The Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, & Abolition at The MacMillan Center|publisher=[[Yale University]]|url=http://www.yale.edu/glc/archive/1060.htm|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141026084603/http://www.yale.edu/glc/archive/1060.htm|archive-date=October 26, 2014}}</ref> According to [[David W. Blight]], however, "Douglass loved cigars" and received them as gifts from [[Ottilie Assing]].<ref>{{cite book | last=Blight | first=David  | title=Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom | publisher=Simon & Schuster | year=2020 | isbn=978-1-4165-9032-3 | page = 514|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ylTDDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA514 | access-date=January 6, 2023}}</ref>

Douglass praised the [[Agnosticism|agnostic]] orator [[Robert G. Ingersoll]], whom Douglass met in [[Peoria, Illinois]], stating, "Genuine goodness is the same, whether found inside or outside the church, and that to be an 'infidel' no more proves a man to be selfish, mean and wicked than to be evangelical proves him to be honest, just and human. Perhaps there were Christian ministers and Christian families in Peoria at that time by whom I might have been received in the same gracious manner ... but in my former visits to this place I had failed to meet them".<ref>{{cite news |last1=Tarted |first1=Steve |title=A Meeting Of Giants |url=https://www.peoriamagazine.com/article/meeting-giants/ |access-date=June 30, 2024 |publisher=Peoria Magazine}}</ref>

==Family life==
[[File:Frederick Douglass - Helen Pitts Douglass (right) her sister Eva Pitts (center).png|thumb|Frederick Douglass after 1884 with his second wife [[Helen Pitts Douglass]] (sitting). The woman standing is her sister Eva Pitts.]]
{{Further|Douglass family}}
Douglass and [[Anna Murray Douglass|Anna Murray]] had five children: [[Rosetta Douglass]], [[Lewis Henry Douglass]], [[Frederick Douglass Jr.]], [[Charles Remond Douglass]], and Annie Douglass (died at the age of ten). Charles and Rosetta helped produce his newspapers.

Anna Douglass remained a loyal supporter of her husband's public work. His relationships with [[Julia Griffiths]] and [[Ottilie Assing]], two women with whom he was professionally involved, caused recurring speculation and scandals.<ref>{{cite book |first1=Michelle Nzadi |last1=Keita |first2=James |last2=Jones |contribution=Murray-Douglass, Anna (1813–1882) |editor1-first=Julius E. |editor1-last=Thompson |editor2-first=James L. Jr. |editor2-last=Conyers |editor3-first=Nancy J. |editor3-last=Dawson |title=The Frederick Douglass Encyclopedia |location=Santa Barbara, California |publisher=ABC-CLIO |year=2010 |isbn=978-0-313-31988-4 |page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=sTV8OsmDQPcC&pg=PA125 125]}}</ref> Assing was a journalist recently immigrated from Germany, who first visited Douglass in 1856 seeking permission to translate ''My Bondage and My Freedom'' into German. Until 1872, she often stayed at his house "for several months at a time" as his "intellectual and emotional companion."<ref name="Blight290">{{cite book |last=Blight |first=David W. |author-link=David W. Blight |title=Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom |publisher=Simon & Schuster |year=2018 |isbn=978-1-4165-9031-6 |location=New York |pages=290–291, 387}}</ref>

Assing held Anna Douglass "in utter contempt" and was vainly hoping that Douglass would separate from his wife. Douglass biographer David W. Blight concludes that Assing and Douglass "were probably lovers".<ref name="Blight290" /> Though Douglass and Assing are widely believed to have had an intimate relationship, the surviving correspondence contains no proof of such a relationship.<ref>{{cite book |last=Blight |first=David W. |author-link=David W. Blight |title=Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom |publisher=Simon & Schuster |year=2018 |isbn=978-1-4165-9031-6 |location=New York |pages=521–522, 529, 570, 572–574}}</ref>

Anna died in 1882. In 1884, Douglass married [[Helen Pitts Douglass|Helen Pitts]], a white suffragist and abolitionist from [[Honeoye, New York]]. Pitts was the daughter of Gideon Pitts Jr., an abolitionist colleague and friend of Douglass's. A graduate of [[Mount Holyoke College]] (then called Mount Holyoke Female Seminary), Pitts worked on a radical feminist publication named ''Alpha'' while living in Washington, D.C. She later worked as Douglass's secretary.<ref>[[Adam Gopnik]], "American Prophet: The gifts of Frederick Douglass", ''The New Yorker'', October 15, 2018, pp. 81–82</ref>

Assing, who had depression and was diagnosed with incurable breast cancer, committed suicide in France in 1884 after hearing of the marriage.<ref>{{cite web |title=Fatal Attraction |url=https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/99/08/01/reviews/990801.01faustt.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180523100911/https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/99/08/01/reviews/990801.01faustt.html |archive-date=May 23, 2018 |access-date=June 8, 2021 |website=archive.nytimes.com}}</ref> Upon her death, Assing bequeathed Douglass a $13,000 [[trust fund]], a "large album", and his choice of books from her library.<ref>{{cite book |last=McFeely |first=William S. |author-link=William S. McFeely |url=https://archive.org/details/frederickdouglas00will_0 |title=Frederick Douglass |date=1991 |publisher=W. W. Norton & Company |isbn=978-0-393-02823-2 |location=New York |url-access=registration |page=[https://archive.org/details/frederickdouglas00will_0/page/322/mode/2up 322]}}</ref>

The marriage of Douglass and Pitts provoked a storm of controversy, since Pitts was both white and nearly 20 years younger. Many in her family stopped speaking to her; his children considered the marriage a repudiation of their mother. But feminist [[Elizabeth Cady Stanton]] congratulated the couple.<ref>[http://winningthevote.org/FDouglass.html Frederick Douglass biography] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060211042543/http://winningthevote.org/FDouglass.html|date=February 11, 2006}} at winningthevote.org. Retrieved October 3, 2006.</ref> Douglass responded to the criticisms by saying that his first marriage had been to someone the color of his mother, and his second to someone the color of his father.<ref>{{cite book |first=Marilyn D. |last=Lovett Douglass |contribution=Helen Pitts (1838–1903) |editor1-first=Julius E. |editor1-last=Thompson |editor2-first=James L. Jr. |editor2-last=Conyers |editor3-first=Nancy J. |editor3-last=Dawson |title=The Frederick Douglass Encyclopedia |location=Santa Barbara, California |publisher=ABC-CLIO |year=2010 |isbn=978-0-313-31988-4 |page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=sTV8OsmDQPcC&pg=PA46 46]}}</ref>

==Career==

===Abolitionist and preacher===
{{Further|Abolitionism in New Bedford, Massachusetts}}
[[File:FrederickDouglass-1848.jpg|thumb|upright|Frederick Douglass, {{circa}} 1840s, in his 20s]]

The couple settled in [[New Bedford, Massachusetts]] (an [[Abolitionism in the United States|abolitionist]] center, full of former enslaved people), in 1838, moving to [[Lynn, Massachusetts]], in 1841.<ref name="nps.gov">{{cite web |title=Frederick Douglass Chronology – Frederick Douglass National Historic Site (U.S. National Park Service) |url=https://www.nps.gov/frdo/learn/historyculture/frederick-douglass-chronology.htm |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180705150721/https://www.nps.gov/frdo/learn/historyculture/frederick-douglass-chronology.htm |archive-date=July 5, 2018 |access-date=June 1, 2018 |website=nps.gov}}</ref> After meeting and staying with [[Nathan Johnson (abolitionist)|Nathan and Mary Johnson]], they adopted Douglass as their married name.<ref name="ThompsonConyers2010PA124" /> Douglass had grown up using his mother's surname of Bailey; after escaping slavery he had changed his surname first to Stanley and then to Johnson. In New Bedford, the latter was such a common name that he wanted one that was more distinctive, and asked Nathan Johnson to choose a suitable surname. Nathan suggested "[[Douglass (surname)|Douglass]]", after having read the poem ''[[The Lady of the Lake (poem)|The Lady of the Lake]]'' by [[Walter Scott]], in which two of the principal characters have the surname "[[Douglas (surname)|Douglas]]".<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Frederick |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UHInBgAAQBAJ&pg=PT115 |title=Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Written by Himself (Civil War Classics) |last2=Douglass |date=2015 |publisher=Diversion Books |isbn=978-1-62681-687-9 |pages=115–116 |access-date=October 28, 2016 |archive-date=September 2, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210902004228/https://books.google.com/books?id=UHInBgAAQBAJ&pg=PT115 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Frederick Douglass |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=66EqDQAAQBAJ&pg=PA177 |title=Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Written by Himself, Critical Edition |year= 2016 |publisher=Yale University Press |isbn=978-0-300-22529-7 |page=177 |access-date=July 5, 2018 |archive-date=August 1, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200801200538/https://books.google.com/books?id=66EqDQAAQBAJ&pg=PA177 |url-status=live }}</ref>

[[File:Johnson Properties, New Bedford, MA.jpg|thumb|The [[Nathan and Mary (Polly) Johnson properties|home and meetinghouse]] of the Johnsons, where Douglass and his wife lived in New Bedford, Massachusetts]]
Douglass thought of joining a white [[Methodist Church]], but was disappointed, from the beginning, upon finding that it was [[Racial segregation|segregated]]. Later, he joined the [[African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church]], an independent [[black church|black denomination]] first established in New York City, which counted among its members [[Sojourner Truth]] and [[Harriet Tubman]].<ref>{{cite book |editor-last=Lee |editor-first=Maurice S. |date=2009 |title=The Cambridge Companion to Frederick Douglass |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |page=63}}</ref> He became a licensed preacher in 1839,<ref name="pbs.org">{{cite web |title=This Far by Faith. Frederick Douglass |url=https://www.pbs.org/thisfarbyfaith/people/frederick_douglass.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150317093340/http://www.pbs.org/thisfarbyfaith/people/frederick_douglass.html |archive-date=March 17, 2015 |access-date=March 17, 2015 |publisher=PBS}}</ref> which helped him to hone his [[Orator|oratorical skills]]. He held various positions, including [[Stewardship|steward]], [[Sunday school|Sunday-school]] [[Superintendent (education)|superintendent]], and [[Sexton (office)|sexton]]. In 1840, Douglass delivered a speech in [[Elmira, New York]], then a station on the [[Underground Railroad]], in which a black congregation would form years later, becoming the region's largest church by 1940.<ref name="religionnews.com">[http://www.religionnews.com/2013/06/19/5-religious-facts-you-might-not-know-about-frederick-douglass/ "Religious Facts You Might Not Know about Frederick Douglass"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140226003441/http://www.religionnews.com/2013/06/19/5-religious-facts-you-might-not-know-about-frederick-douglass/|date=February 26, 2014}}, ''Religion News'', June 19, 2013.</ref>

Douglass also joined several organizations in New Bedford and regularly attended abolitionist meetings. He subscribed to [[William Lloyd Garrison]]'s weekly newspaper, ''[[The Liberator (newspaper)|The Liberator]]''. He later said that "no face and form ever impressed me with such sentiments [of the hatred of slavery] as did those of William Lloyd Garrison." So deep was this influence that in his last autobiography, Douglass said "his paper took a place in my heart second only to [[Bible|The Bible]]."<ref>Douglass, Frederick. [1881] 2008. ''[[Life and Times of Frederick Douglass]]''. Cosimo, Inc., p. 149 {{ISBN|978-1-60520-399-7}}.</ref>

Garrison was likewise impressed with Douglass and had written about his anti-[[American Colonization Society|colonization]] stance in ''The Liberator'' as early as 1839. Douglass first heard Garrison speak in 1841, at a lecture that Garrison gave in Liberty Hall, New Bedford. At another meeting, Douglass was unexpectedly invited to speak. After telling his story, Douglass was encouraged to become an anti-slavery lecturer. A few days later, Douglass spoke at the [[Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society]]'s annual convention, in [[Nantucket]]. Then 23 years old, Douglass conquered his nervousness and gave an eloquent speech about his life as a slave.

[[File:Garrison-william-lloyd-loc.jpg|thumb|upright|[[William Lloyd Garrison]], abolitionist and one of Douglass's first friends in the North]]
While living in Lynn, Douglass engaged in an early protest against segregated transportation. In September 1841, at [[Lynn station|Lynn Central Square station]], Douglass and his friend [[James N. Buffum]] were thrown off an [[Eastern Railroad (Massachusetts)|Eastern Railroad]] train because Douglass refused to sit in the segregated railroad coach.<ref name="nps.gov" /><ref>{{cite web |title=Transportation Protests: 1841 to 1992 |url=https://www.civilrightsteaching.org/desegregation/transportation-protests/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180806054632/https://www.civilrightsteaching.org/desegregation/transportation-protests/ |archive-date=August 6, 2018 |access-date=June 1, 2018 |website=civilrightsteaching.org}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |date=March 10, 2009 |title=Resistance to the Segregation of Public Transportation in the Early 1840s |url=http://primaryresearch.org/resistance-to-the-segregation-of-public-transportation-in-the-early-1840s/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180806031930/http://primaryresearch.org/resistance-to-the-segregation-of-public-transportation-in-the-early-1840s/ |archive-date=August 6, 2018 |access-date=June 1, 2018 |website=primaryresearch.org}}</ref><ref>{{Wikisource-inline|Page:My Bondage and My Freedom (1855).djvu/411|single=true}}</ref>

In 1843, Douglass joined other speakers in the [[American Anti-Slavery Society]]'s "Hundred Conventions" project, a six-month tour at meeting halls throughout the [[Eastern United States|eastern]] and [[midwestern United States]]. During this tour, slavery supporters frequently accosted Douglass. At a lecture in [[Pendleton, Indiana]], an angry mob chased and beat Douglass before a local Quaker family, the Hardys, rescued him. His hand was broken in the attack; it healed improperly and bothered him for the rest of his life.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Douglass |first=Frederick |title=Life and Times of Frederick Douglass, Written by Himself, His Early Life as a Slave, His Escape from Bondage, and His Complete History to the Present Time |title-link=Life and Times of Frederick Douglass |date=1881 |publisher=Christian Age Office |location=London |pages=[https://archive.org/details/lifeandtimesfre00douggoog/page/n265 287]–88}}</ref> A stone marker in Falls Park in the [[Pendleton Historic District (Pendleton, Indiana)|Pendleton Historic District]] commemorates this event.

In 1847, Douglass explained to Garrison, "I have no love for America, as such; I have no patriotism. I have no country. What country have I? The Institutions of this Country do not know me—do not recognize me as a man."<ref>{{cite news |first=Frederick |last=Douglass |url=https://glc.yale.edu/country-conscience-and-anti-slavery-cause |title=Country, Conscience, and the Anti-Slavery Cause: An Address Delivered in New York City, May 11, 1847 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200731203800/https://glc.yale.edu/country-conscience-and-anti-slavery-cause |archive-date=July 31, 2020 |newspaper=New York Daily Tribune |date=May 13, 1847}} Reprinted in {{cite book |editor1-last=Blassingame |editor1-first=John W. |editor2-first=John R. |editor2-last=McKivigan |title=The Frederick Douglass Papers: Series One—Speeches, Debates, and Interviews |location=New Haven |publisher=Yale University Press |date=1979 |volume=2 |page=57}}</ref>

===Autobiography===
Douglass's best-known work is his first autobiography, ''[[Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave]]'', written during his time in [[Lynn, Massachusetts]]<ref>{{Cite news |title=Re-Examining Fredrick Douglass's Time in Lynn |publisher=Lynn Daily Item / itemlive.com |url=https://www.itemlive.com/2018/02/02/re-examining-fredrick-douglasss-time-lynn/ |url-status=live |access-date=June 1, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201221122601/https://www.itemlive.com/2018/02/02/re-examining-fredrick-douglasss-time-lynn/ |archive-date=December 21, 2020}}</ref> and published in 1845. At the time, some skeptics questioned whether a black man could have produced such an eloquent piece of literature. The book received generally positive reviews and became an immediate bestseller. Within three years, it had been reprinted nine times, with 11,000 copies circulating in the United States. It was also translated into French and [[Dutch language|Dutch]] and published in Europe.

Douglass published three autobiographies during his lifetime (and revised the third of these), each time expanding on the previous one. The 1845 ''Narrative'' was his biggest seller and probably allowed him to raise the funds to gain his legal freedom the following year, as discussed below. In 1855, Douglass published ''[[My Bondage and My Freedom]]''. In 1881, in his sixties, Douglass published ''[[Life and Times of Frederick Douglass]]'', which he revised in 1892.

===Travels to Ireland and Great Britain===
[[File:Plaque to Frederick Douglass, West Bell St., Dundee, Scotland.jpg|thumb|Plaque to Frederick Douglass, West Bell St., Dundee, Scotland]]
[[File:Unidentified Artist - Frederick Douglass - Google Art Project-restore.png|thumb|Douglass in 1847, around 29 years of age]]Douglass's friends and mentors feared that the publicity would draw the attention of his ex-owner, Hugh Auld, who might try to get his "property" back. They encouraged Douglass to tour Ireland, as many former slaves had done. Douglass set sail on the ''Cambria'' for [[Liverpool]], England, on August 16, 1845. He traveled in Ireland as the [[Great Famine (Ireland)|Great Famine]] was beginning.

The feeling of freedom from American [[racial discrimination]] amazed Douglass:<ref name="My Bondage">Douglass, Frederick. [1885] 2003. ''[[My Bondage and My Freedom|My Bondage and My Freedom: Part I – Life as a Slave, Part II – Life as a Freeman]]'', introduction by [[James McCune Smith]], edited by [[John Stauffer (professor)|John Stauffer]]. New York: [[Random House]]. {{ISBN|0-8129-7031-4}}. p. [http://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/douglass55/douglass55.html#p371 371] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170131195955/http://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/douglass55/douglass55.html#p371|date=January 31, 2017}}</ref>

<blockquote>Eleven days and a half gone, and I have crossed three thousand miles of the perilous deep. Instead of a democratic government, I am under a monarchical government. Instead of the bright, blue sky of America, I am covered with the soft, grey fog of the Emerald Isle [Ireland]. I breathe, and lo! the chattel [slave] becomes a man. I gaze around in vain for one who will question my equal humanity, claim me as his slave, or offer me an insult. I employ a cab—I am seated beside white people—I reach the hotel—I enter the same door—I am shown into the same parlor—I dine at the same table—and no one is offended.... I find myself regarded and treated at every turn with the kindness and deference paid to white people. When I go to church, I am met by no upturned nose and scornful lip to tell me, {{'}}''We don't allow niggers in here!''{{'}}</blockquote>

Still, Douglass was astounded by the extreme levels of poverty he encountered in Dublin, much of it reminding him of his experiences in slavery.  In a letter to [[William Lloyd Garrison]], Douglass wrote "I see much here to remind me of my former condition, and I confess I should be ashamed to lift up my voice against American slavery, but that I know the cause of humanity is one the world over. He who really and truly feels for the American slave, cannot steel his heart to the woes of others; and he who thinks himself an abolitionist, yet cannot enter into the wrongs of others, has yet to find a true foundation for his anti-slavery faith."<ref>[https://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/douglass/support12.html ''The Liberator'', 27 March 1846] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210520062708/https://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/douglass/support12.html |date=May 20, 2021 }}; reprinted in Philip Foner, ed., ''Life and Writings of Frederick Douglass'', vol. 1 (New York: International Publishers, 1950), p. 138.</ref>

He also met and befriended the [[Irish nationalism|Irish nationalist]] and strident abolitionist [[Daniel O'Connell]],<ref>{{cite web |last=O'Dowd |first=Niall |title=Frederick Douglass was quickly captivated by Daniel O'Connell in 1845 Ireland |url=https://www.irishcentral.com/roots/history/frederick-douglass-daniel-oconnell |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200822164245/https://www.irishcentral.com/roots/history/frederick-douglass-daniel-oconnell |archive-date=August 22, 2020 |access-date=August 23, 2020 |website=Irish Central }}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Douglass |first=Frederick |title=Life and Times of Frederick Douglass, Written by Himself, His Early Life as a Slave, His Escape from Bondage, and His Complete History to the Present Time |title-link=Life and Times of Frederick Douglass |date=1881 |publisher=Christian Age Office |location=London |page=[https://archive.org/details/lifeandtimesfre01douggoog/page/n235 205]}}</ref> who was to be a great inspiration.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Chaffin |first=Tom |date=February 25, 2011 |title=Frederick Douglass's Irish Liberty |work=[[The New York Times]] |url=http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/25/frederick-douglasss-irish-liberty/ |url-status=live |access-date=February 26, 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181009132105/https://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/25/frederick-douglasss-irish-liberty/ |archive-date=October 9, 2018}}</ref><ref>Frederick Douglass letter to [[William Lloyd Garrison]] quoted in Christine Kinealy ed. (2018), ''Frederick Douglass and Ireland: In His Own Words, Volume II''. Routledge, New York. {{ISBN|978-0-429-50505-8}}. pp. 67–72.</ref>

Douglass spent two years in Ireland and Great Britain, lecturing in churches and chapels. His draw was such that some facilities were "crowded to suffocation". One example was his hugely popular ''London Reception Speech'', which Douglass delivered in May 1846 at [[Alexander Fletcher (minister)|Alexander Fletcher]]'s [[Finsbury Chapel]]. Douglass remarked that in England he was treated not "as a color, but as a man".<ref name="Ruuth">{{Cite book |last=Ruuth |first=Marianne |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4Lx8nXxmAlcC&q=Douglass%2520-%2520england%2520-%2520not%2520%2522as%2520a%2520color%252C%2520but%2520as%2520a%2520manFrederick+Douglass&pg=PA118 |title=Frederick Douglass: Patriot and Activist |date=1995 |publisher=Holloway House Publishing |isbn=978-0-87067-773-1 |pages=117–118 |language=en |access-date=January 21, 2022 |archive-date=February 17, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220217142500/https://books.google.com/books?id=4Lx8nXxmAlcC&q=Douglass%2520-%2520england%2520-%2520not%2520%2522as%2520a%2520color%252C%2520but%2520as%2520a%2520manFrederick+Douglass&pg=PA118 |url-status=live }}</ref>

In 1846, Douglass met with [[Thomas Clarkson]], one of the last living British [[Abolitionism in the United Kingdom|abolitionists]], who had persuaded Parliament to abolish slavery in Great Britain's colonies.<ref>[[Simon Schama]], ''[[Rough Crossings: Britain, the Slaves, and the American Revolution]]'', New York: HarperCollins, 2006, pp. 415–21.</ref> During this trip Douglass became legally free, as British supporters led by [[Anna Richardson (abolitionist)|Anna Richardson]] and her sister-in-law Ellen of [[Newcastle upon Tyne]] raised funds to buy his freedom from his American owner Thomas Auld.<ref name="Ruuth" /><ref>{{Cite book |last=Frances E. Ruffin |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GWQDuizyvD0C&pg=PA59 |title=Frederick Douglass: Rising Up from Slavery |year=2008 |isbn=978-1-4027-4118-0 |page=59 | publisher=Sterling Publishing Company |access-date=October 26, 2015 |archive-date=August 1, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200801193410/https://books.google.com/books?id=GWQDuizyvD0C&pg=PA59 |url-status=live }}</ref> Many supporters tried to encourage Douglass to remain in England but, with his wife still in Massachusetts and three million of his black brethren in bondage in the United States, he returned to America in the spring of 1847,<ref name="Ruuth" /> soon after the death of Daniel O'Connell.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Chaffin |first=Tom |title=Frederick Douglass's Irish Liberty |work=Opinionator |date=February 26, 2011 |url=https://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/25/frederick-douglasss-irish-liberty/?mcubz=1 |url-status=live |access-date=September 21, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170922052034/https://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/25/frederick-douglasss-irish-liberty/?mcubz=1 |archive-date=September 22, 2017}}</ref>

In the 21st century, historical plaques were installed on buildings in [[Cork (city)|Cork]] and [[Waterford]], Ireland, and London to celebrate Douglass's visit: the first is on the Imperial Hotel in Cork and was unveiled on August 31, 2012; the second is on the façade of Waterford City Hall, unveiled on October 7, 2013. It commemorates his speech there on October 9, 1845.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Fenton |first=Laurence |title=Frederick Douglass in Ireland: the 'Black O'Connell' |publisher=Collins Press |year=2014 |isbn=978-1-84889-196-8 |location=Cork |pages=131, 151 |oclc=869789226}}</ref> The third plaque adorns [[Nell Gwynn House]], [[South Kensington]] in London, at the site of an earlier house where Douglass stayed with the British abolitionist [[George Thompson (abolitionist)|George Thompson]].<ref>{{cite web |website=Embassy of the United States, London |first=Barbara J. |last=Stephenson |title=Remarks at the Unveiling of the Frederick Douglass Plaque |date=February 20, 2013 |url=http://london.usembassy.gov/dcm-speeches/stephenson006.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131015095716/http://london.usembassy.gov/dcm-speeches/stephenson006.html |archive-date=October 15, 2013 }}</ref> On July 31, 2023, the first statue of him in Europe was unveiled in High Street in [[Belfast]].<ref>{{cite web |website=www.bbc.co.uk|first1=Finn |last1=Purdy |first2=Conor| last2=Neeson|title= Frederick Douglass: Belfast statue of black anti-slavery activist unveiled |date=July 31, 2023 |url= https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-66358247.amp}}</ref>

Douglass spent time in Scotland and was appointed "Scotland's Antislavery agent."<ref>{{cite web |title=Frederick Douglass |url=https://www.nls.uk/exhibitions/treasures/frederick-douglass/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210620030713/https://www.nls.uk/exhibitions/treasures/frederick-douglass/ |archive-date=June 20, 2021 |access-date=June 20, 2021 |website=National Library of Scotland |language=en}}</ref> He made anti-slavery speeches and wrote letters back to the USA. He considered the city of Edinburgh to be elegant, grand and very welcoming. Maps of the places in the city that were important to his stay are held by the National Library of Scotland.<ref>{{cite web |title=Maps |url=https://www.nls.uk/exhibitions/treasures/frederick-douglass/maps/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210301035102/https://www.nls.uk/exhibitions/treasures/frederick-douglass/maps |archive-date=March 1, 2021 |access-date=June 20, 2021 |website=National Library of Scotland |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Home |url=https://ourbondageourfreedom.llc.ed.ac.uk/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210217103251/https://ourbondageourfreedom.llc.ed.ac.uk/ |archive-date=February 17, 2021 |access-date=June 20, 2021 |website=Our Bondage & Our Freedom |language=en-GB}}</ref> A plaque and a mural on Gilmore Place in [[Edinburgh]] mark his stay there in 1846.

"A variety of collaborative projects are currently [in 2021] underway to commemorate Frederick Douglass's journey and visit to Ireland in the 19th century."<ref>{{cite web |title=Tracing Frederick Douglass's footsteps in Ireland |url=https://www.douglassincork.com/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210624201519/https://www.douglassincork.com/ |archive-date=June 24, 2021 |access-date=June 20, 2021}}</ref>

===Return to the United States; the abolitionist movement===
[[File:Frederick Douglass by Samuel J Miller, 1847-52.png|thumb|Douglass circa 1847–52, around his early 30s]]
After returning to the U.S. in 1847, using £500 ({{inflation|UK|500|1847|fmt=eq}}) given to him by English supporters,<ref name="Ruuth" /> Douglass started publishing his first abolitionist newspaper, the ''[[North Star (anti-slavery newspaper)|North Star]]'', from the basement of the Memorial AME Zion Church in [[Rochester, New York]].<ref>{{cite news |date=June 19, 2013 |title=5 religious facts you might not know about Frederick Douglass |url=http://www.religionnews.com/2013/06/19/5-religious-facts-you-might-not-know-about-frederick-douglass |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150216025656/http://www.religionnews.com/2013/06/19/5-religious-facts-you-might-not-know-about-frederick-douglass/ |archive-date=February 16, 2015 |access-date=March 17, 2015 |agency=Religion News Service}}</ref> Originally, [[Pittsburgh]] journalist [[Martin Delany]] was co-editor but Douglass didn't feel he brought in enough subscriptions, and they parted ways.<ref name="Blight">{{cite book |last=Blight
 |first=David W.
 |title=Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom
 |publisher=Simon & Schuster
 |year=2018
|isbn=978-1-4165-9031-6
|location=New York
|author-link=David W. Blight}}</ref>{{page needed|date=April 2022}} The ''North Star''{{'s}} motto was "Right is of no Sex – Truth is of no Color – God is the Father of us all, and we are all brethren."<ref name="Koehn 2017 249–250">{{Cite book |last=Koehn |first=Nancy |title=Forged in Crisis: The Power of Courageous Leadership in Turbulent Times |publisher=Scribner |year=2017 |isbn=978-1-5011-7444-5 |location=New York |pages=249–250}}</ref> The AME Church and ''North Star'' joined in the freedmen community's vigorous opposition to the mostly white [[American Colonization Society]] and its proposal to [[Back-to-Africa movement|send free black people to Africa]]. Douglass also participated in the [[Underground Railroad]]. He and his wife provided lodging and resources in their home to more than four hundred fugitive slaves.<ref name="Koehn 2017 249–250" />

Douglass also soon split with Garrison, whom he found unwilling to support actions against American slavery.<ref>{{cite news
|title=Jerry Rescue Celebration
|newspaper=[[Anti-Slavery Bugle]]
|date=October 14, 1854
|page=2
|location=[[Salem, Ohio]]
|url=https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83035487/1854-10-14/ed-1/seq-2/#}}</ref> Earlier Douglass had agreed with Garrison's position that the Constitution was pro-slavery, because of [[Three-Fifths Compromise|the Three-Fifths Clause]], the compromise that provided that 60 percent of the number of enslaved people would be added to "the whole Number of free Persons"<ref>U.S. Constitution, Article I, section 2.</ref> for the purpose of apportioning congressional seats; and protection of the international slave trade through 1807. Garrison had burned copies of the Constitution to express his opinion. However, [[Lysander Spooner]] published ''[[The Unconstitutionality of Slavery]]'' (1846), which examined the [[United States Constitution]] as an antislavery document. Douglass's change of opinion about the Constitution and his splitting from Garrison around 1847 became one of the abolitionist movement's most notable divisions. Douglass angered Garrison by saying that the Constitution could and should be used as an instrument in the fight against slavery.<ref>Robert Fanuzzi, "Frederick Douglass' 'Colored Newspaper': Identity Politics in Black and White," in ''The Black Press: New Literary and Historical Essays'', Todd Vogel, ed. (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2001), pp. 65–69.</ref>

On July 24, 1851, "shortly after his announced change of opinion", Douglass delivered a speech titled, "Is the United States Constitution For or Against Slavery".<ref>Rebeiro, footnotes 51 and 67.</ref> He expressed his changed views again in an 1860 speech in Glasgow, Scotland, titled, "[[The Constitution of the United States: is it pro-slavery or anti-slavery?]]". In that speech, he said, "When I escaped from slavery, and was introduced to the Garrisonians, I adopted very many of their opinions.... I was young, had read but little, and naturally took some things on trust. Subsequent reading and experience", however, "brought me to other conclusions". He now believed that "dissolution of the American Union", which Garrison advocated, "would place the slave system more exclusively under the control of the slaveholding States...." In addition, "Mr. Garrison and his friends tell us that while in the Union we are responsible for slavery.... I deny that going out of the Union would free us from that responsibility.... The American people in the Northern States have helped to enslave the black people. Their duty will not be done till they give them back their plundered rights."<ref>[https://www.blackpast.org/global-african-history/1860-frederick-douglass-constitution-united-states-it-pro-slavery-or-anti-slavery/ (1860) FREDERICK DOUGLASS, "THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES: IS IT PRO-SLAVERY OR ANTI-SLAVERY?"], full text. [https://cptl.asu.edu/sites/default/files/2021-06/Q75%20Douglass%2C%20Is%20the%20Constitution%20Proslavery%20or%20Antislavery%2C%201860_CPTL.pdf Abridged]</ref>

===Letter to his former owner===
In September 1848, on the tenth anniversary of his escape, Douglass published an open letter addressed to his former master, Thomas Auld, berating him for his conduct, and inquiring after members of his family still held by Auld.<ref name="Finkelman2006-105" /><ref name="Douglass1848" /> In the course of the letter, Douglass adeptly transitions from formal and restrained to familiar and then to impassioned. At one point he is the proud parent, describing his improved circumstances and the progress of his own four young children. But then he dramatically shifts tone:

<blockquote>Oh! sir, a slaveholder never appears to me so completely an agent of hell, as when I think of and look upon my dear children. It is then that my feelings rise above my control. ... The grim horrors of slavery rise in all their ghastly terror before me, the wails of millions pierce my heart, and chill my blood. I remember the chain, the gag, the bloody whip, the deathlike gloom overshadowing the broken spirit of the fettered bondman, the appalling liability of his being torn away from wife and children, and sold like a beast in the market.<ref name="AuldLetter">{{cite web |last=Douglass |first=Fredrick |date=September 3, 1848 |title=Letter to Thomas Auld |url=https://glc.yale.edu/letter-thomas-auld-september-3-1848 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201029235339/https://glc.yale.edu/letter-thomas-auld-september-3-1848 |archive-date=29 October 2020 |access-date=24 October 2020 |publisher=glc.yale.edu}}</ref></blockquote>

In a graphic passage, Douglass asked Auld how he would feel if Douglass had come to take away his daughter Amanda into slavery, treating her the way he and members of his family had been treated by Auld.<ref name="Finkelman2006-105">{{Cite book |last=Paul Finkelman |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-y0OAQAAMAAJ |title=Encyclopedia of African American History, 1619–1895: from the colonial period to the age of Frederick Douglass |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2006 |isbn=978-0-19-516777-1 |pages=104–105 |access-date=October 26, 2015 |archive-date=September 2, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210902004241/https://books.google.com/books?id=-y0OAQAAMAAJ |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="Douglass1848">{{cite web |title=I am your fellow man, but not your slave |url=http://www.lettersofnote.com/2012/02/i-am-your-fellow-man-but-not-your-slave.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120227003753/http://www.lettersofnote.com/2012/02/i-am-your-fellow-man-but-not-your-slave.html |archive-date=February 27, 2012 |access-date=August 30, 2023}}</ref> Yet in his conclusion Douglass shows his focus and benevolence, stating that he has "no malice towards him personally," and asserts that, "there is no roof under which you would be more safe than mine, and there is nothing in my house which you might need for comfort, which I would not readily grant. Indeed, I should esteem it a privilege, to set you an example as to how mankind ought to treat each other."<ref name="AuldLetter" />

===Women's rights===
In 1848, Douglass was the only black person to attend the [[Seneca Falls Convention]], the first [[women's rights]] convention, in upstate New York.<ref>{{cite web |date=August 18, 1920 |title=Seneca Falls Convention |url=http://www.virginiamemory.com/online_classroom/shaping_the_constitution/doc/seneca_falls |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110717211129/http://www.virginiamemory.com/online_classroom/shaping_the_constitution/doc/seneca_falls |archive-date=July 17, 2011 |access-date=April 20, 2011 |publisher=Virginia Memory}}</ref><ref>Stanton, 1997, p. 85.</ref> [[Elizabeth Cady Stanton]] asked the assembly to pass a resolution asking for [[women's suffrage]].<ref>USConstitution.net. [http://www.usconstitution.net/sentiments.html Text of the "Declaration of Sentiments", and the Resolutions] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090221131819/http://usconstitution.net/sentiments.html|date=February 21, 2009}}. Retrieved April 24, 2009.</ref> Many of those present opposed the idea, including influential Quakers [[James Mott|James]] and [[Lucretia Mott]].<ref name=McMillen93/> Douglass stood and spoke eloquently in favor of [[Women's suffrage in the United States|women's suffrage]]; he said that he could not accept the right to vote as a black man if women could also not claim that right. He suggested that the world would be a better place if [[Women in government|women were involved in the political sphere]]:

{{blockquote|In this denial of the right to participate in government, not merely the degradation of woman and the perpetuation of a great injustice happens, but the maiming and repudiation of one-half of the moral and intellectual power of the government of the world.<ref name="McMillen93">McMillen, 2008, pp. 93–94.</ref>}}

After Douglass's powerful words, the attendees passed the resolution.<ref name=McMillen93/><ref>National Park Service. Women's Rights. [http://www.nps.gov/wori/historyculture/report-of-the-womans-rights-convention.htm Report of the Woman's Rights Convention, July 19–20, 1848] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090503160458/http://www.nps.gov/wori/historyculture/report-of-the-womans-rights-convention.htm|date=May 3, 2009}}. Retrieved April 24, 2009.</ref>

In the wake of the Seneca Falls Convention, Douglass used an editorial in ''The North Star'' to press the case for women's rights. He recalled the "marked ability and dignity" of the proceedings, and briefly conveyed several arguments of the convention and feminist thought at the time.

On the first count, Douglass acknowledged the "decorum" of the participants in the face of disagreement. In the remainder, he discussed the primary document that emerged from the conference, a Declaration of Sentiments, and the "infant" feminist cause. He criticized opponents of women's rights: "A discussion of the rights of animals would be regarded with far more complacency by many of what are called the ''wise'' and the ''good'' of our land, than would be a discussion of the rights of woman."<ref>{{Cite web |title=Image 3 of The North star (Rochester, N.Y.), July 28, 1848 |url=https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn84026365/1848-07-28/ed-1/?dl=issue&sp=1&st=image |access-date=June 22, 2024 |website=Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 20540 USA}}</ref> He also noted the link between abolitionism and feminism, the overlap between the communities.

His opinion as the editor of a prominent newspaper carried weight, and he stated the position of the ''North Star'' explicitly: "We hold woman to be justly entitled to all we claim for man." This letter, written a week after the convention, reaffirmed the first part of the paper's slogan, "right is of no sex."

[[File:Frederick Douglass Visit to Newburgh, NY.jpg|thumb|Memorial Rock at AME Zion, Newburgh, New York]]
After the [[American Civil War|Civil War]], when the [[Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution|15th Amendment]] giving black men the right to vote was being debated, Douglass split with the Stanton-led faction of the women's rights movement. Douglass supported the amendment, which would grant suffrage to black men. Stanton opposed the 15th Amendment because it limited the expansion of suffrage to black men; she predicted its passage would delay for decades the cause for women's right to vote. Stanton argued that American women and black men should band together to fight for [[universal suffrage]], and opposed any bill that split the issues.<ref name="DouglassO" /> Douglass and Stanton both knew that there was not yet enough male support for women's right to vote, but that an amendment giving black men the vote could pass in the late 1860s. Stanton wanted to attach women's suffrage to that of black men so that her cause would be carried to success.<ref name="Foner, p.600">Foner, p. 600.</ref>

Douglass thought such a strategy was too risky, that there was barely enough support for black men's suffrage. He feared that linking the cause of women's suffrage to that of black men would result in failure for both. Douglass argued that white women, already empowered by their social connections to fathers, husbands, and brothers, at least vicariously had the vote. Black women, he believed, would have the same degree of empowerment as white women once black men had the vote.<ref name="Foner, p.600" /> Douglass assured the American women that at no time had he ever argued against women's right to vote.<ref>{{cite book |last=Watkins |first=Valetha |contribution=National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) |editor1-first=Julius E. |editor1-last=Thompson |editor2-first=James L. Jr. |editor2-last=Conyers |editor3-first=Nancy J. |editor3-last=Dawson |title=The Frederick Douglass Encyclopedia |location=Santa Barbara, California |publisher=ABC-CLIO |year=2010 |isbn=978-0-313-31988-4 |page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=sTV8OsmDQPcC&pg=PA138 138]}}</ref>

===Ideological refinement===
[[File:Motto frederick douglass 2.jpg|thumb|Frederick Douglass in 1856, around 38 years of age]]
In 1850, Douglass was elected the vice president of the [[American League of Colored Laborers]], the first black labor union in the United States, which he had also helped found.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Bradley |first=Jonathan |date=January 4, 2011 |title=American League of Colored Laborers (1850-?) |url=https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/american-league-colored-laborers-1850/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240205065637/https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/american-league-colored-laborers-1850/ |archive-date=February 5, 2024 |access-date=April 26, 2024 |website=[[BlackPast.org]]}}</ref> Meanwhile, in 1851, he merged the ''North Star'' with [[Gerrit Smith]]'s Liberty Party paper to form ''Frederick Douglass' Paper'',<ref>Blight, David W., ''Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom'', p. 213.</ref> which was published until 1859.<ref>[https://nyheritage.org/collections/frederick-douglass-paper Frederick Douglass' Paper]</ref>

On July 5, 1852, Douglass delivered an address in  [[Corinthian Hall (Rochester, New York)|Corinthian Hall]] at a meeting organized by the Rochester Ladies' Anti-Slavery Society. This speech eventually became known as "[[What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?]]"; one biographer called it "perhaps the greatest antislavery oration ever given."<ref>{{Cite book |last=McFeely |first=William S. |author-link=William S. McFeely |url=https://archive.org/details/frederickdouglas00will_0 |title=Frederick Douglass |date=1991 |publisher=W. W. Norton & Company |isbn=978-0-393-02823-2 |location=New York |page=[https://archive.org/details/frederickdouglas00will_0/page/173/mode/2up 173] |url-access=registration}}</ref> In 1853, he was a prominent attendee of the radical abolitionist National African American Convention in Rochester. Douglass was one of five people whose names were attached to the address of the convention to the people of the United States published under the title, ''The Claims of Our Common Cause''. The other four were [[Amos Noë Freeman]], [[James Monroe Whitfield]], [[Henry O. Wagoner]], and [[George Boyer Vashon]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Douglass |first=Frederick |url=https://archive.org/details/frederickdouglas00fred |title=Frederick Douglass: Selected Speeches and Writings |date=1999 |publisher=Chicago Review Press |isbn=978-1-55652-349-6 |editor-last=Foner |editor-first=Philip S. |editor-link=Philip Foner |location=Chicago |pages=[https://archive.org/details/frederickdouglas00fred/page/260/mode/2up 260]–271 |editor-last2=Taylor |editor-first2=Yuval |url-access=registration}}</ref>

Like many abolitionists, Douglass believed that education would be crucial for African Americans to improve their lives; he was an early advocate for [[School integration in the United States|school desegregation]]. In the 1850s, Douglass observed that New York's facilities and instruction for African American children were vastly inferior to those for European Americans. Douglass called for court action to open all schools to all children. He said that full inclusion within the educational system was a more pressing need for African Americans than political issues such as suffrage.

===John Brown===
[[File:Douglass argued against John Brown's plan to attack the arsenal at Harpers Ferry - NARA - 559102.jpg|thumb|''Douglass argued against John Brown's plan to attack the arsenal at Harpers Ferry'', painting by [[Jacob Lawrence]]]]
{{see also|Shields Green}}
On March 12, 1859, Douglass met with radical abolitionists [[John Brown (abolitionist)|John Brown]], [[George DeBaptiste]], and others at William Webb's house in Detroit to discuss emancipation.<ref>Underground Railroad, US Department of Interior, National Park Service, Denver Service Center. Diane Publishing, February 1, 1995, p. 168.</ref> Douglass met Brown again when Brown visited his home two months before leading [[John Brown's Raid on Harpers Ferry|the raid on Harpers Ferry]]. Brown penned his [[John Brown's Provisional Constitution|Provisional Constitution]] during his two-week stay with Douglass. Also staying with Douglass for over a year was [[Shields Green]], a fugitive slave whom Douglass was helping, as he often did.

Shortly before the raid, Douglass, taking Green with him, travelled from Rochester, via New York City, to [[Chambersburg, Pennsylvania]], Brown's communications headquarters. He was recognized there by black people, who asked him for a lecture. Douglass agreed, although he said his only topic was slavery. Green joined him on the stage; Brown, [[wikt:incognito|incognito]], sat in the audience. A white reporter, referring to "Nigger Democracy", called it a "flaming address" by "the notorious Negro Orator".<ref>{{Cite news |date=August 24, 1859 |title=High Treason! |page=5 |work=Franklin Repository |location=[[Chambersburg, Pennsylvania]] |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/74855203/lecture-by-frederick-douglass/ |url-status=live |access-date=April 1, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210413201002/https://www.newspapers.com/clip/74855203/lecture-by-frederick-douglass/ |archive-date=April 13, 2021 |via=[[newspapers.com]]}}</ref>

There, in an abandoned stone quarry for secrecy, Douglass and Green met with Brown and [[John Henri Kagi]], to discuss the raid. After discussions lasting, as Douglass put it, "a day and a night", he disappointed Brown by declining to join him, considering the mission suicidal. To Douglass's surprise, Green went with Brown instead of returning to Rochester with Douglass. Anne Brown said that Green told her that Douglass promised to pay him on his return, but [[David Blight]] called this "much more ex post facto bitterness than reality".<ref>{{Cite book |last=DeCaro |first=Louis A. Jr. |title=The Untold Story of Shields Green: The Life and Death of a Harper's Ferry Raider |publisher=[[New York University Press]] |year=2020 |isbn=978-1-4798-0275-3 |pages=172–174}}</ref>

Almost all that is known about this incident comes from Douglass. It is clear that it was of immense importance to him, both as a turning point in his life—not accompanying John Brown—and its importance in his public image. The meeting was not revealed by Douglass for 20 years. He first disclosed it in his speech on John Brown at [[Storer College]] in 1881, trying unsuccessfully to raise money to support a John Brown professorship at Storer, to be held by a black man. He again referred to it stunningly in his last ''Autobiography''.

After the raid, which took place between October 16 and 18, 1859, Douglass was accused both of supporting Brown and of not supporting him enough.<ref>{{Cite encyclopedia |year=1995 |title=His Soul Goes Marching On. Responses to John Brown and the Harpers Ferry Raid |publisher=[[University Press of Virginia]] |location=[[Charlottesville, Virginia]] |last=Drescher |first=Seymour |author-link=Seymour Drescher |editor-last=Finkelman |editor-first=Paul |editor-link=Paul Finkelman |page=275 |isbn=978-0-8139-1536-4 |contribution=Servile Insurrection and John Brown's Body in Europe}}</ref> He was nearly arrested on a Virginia warrant,<ref>{{Cite news |last=Douglass |first=Frederick |date=November 11, 1859 |orig-date=October 31, 1859 |title=Letter from Frederick Douglass |page=1 |work=[[The Liberator (newspaper)|The Liberator]] |location=Boston, Massachusetts |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/73678456/letter-from-frederick-douglass/ |url-status=live |access-date=March 19, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210413201032/https://www.newspapers.com/clip/73678456/letter-from-frederick-douglass/ |archive-date=April 13, 2021 |via=[[newspapers.com]]}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |date=October 27, 1859 |title=Supposed Search for Fred. Douglass |page=8 |work=[[The New York Times]] |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/73841684/search-for-fredeick-douglass/ |url-status=live |access-date=March 19, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210413202918/https://www.newspapers.com/clip/73841684/search-for-fredeick-douglass/ |archive-date=April 13, 2021 |via=[[newspapers.com]]}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |last=Douglass |first=Frederick |author-link=Frederick Douglass |date=March 7, 1874 |title=John Brown |page=1 |work=Shepherdstown Register |location=[[Shepherdstown, West Virginia]] |url=https://virginiachronicle.com/?a=d&d=SR18740307 |url-status=live |access-date=March 18, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210413201159/https://virginiachronicle.com/?a=d&d=SR18740307 |archive-date=April 13, 2021 |via=VirginiaChronicle}}</ref> and fled for a brief time to Canada before proceeding onward to England on a previously planned lecture tour, arriving near the end of November.<ref>[https://www.loc.gov/collections/frederick-douglass-papers/articles-and-essays/frederick-douglass-timeline/1847-to-1859 "Frederick Douglass Papers at the Library of Congress, Timeline, 1847 to 1859]. {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190227095331/https://www.loc.gov/collections/frederick-douglass-papers/articles-and-essays/frederick-douglass-timeline/1847-to-1859/ |date=February 27, 2019 }}, U.S. Library of Congress.  Retrieved August 29, 2020</ref> During his lecture tour of Great Britain, on March 26, 1860, Douglass delivered a speech before the Scottish Anti-Slavery Society in [[Glasgow]], "[[The Constitution of the United States: is it pro-slavery or anti-slavery?]]", outlining his views on the American Constitution.<ref>Frederick Douglass (1860), [https://web.archive.org/web/20191005195305/https://www.blackpast.org/global-african-history/1860-frederick-douglass-constitution-united-states-it-pro-slavery-or-anti-slavery/ "The Constitution of the United States: Is It Pro-Slavery or Anti-Slavery?"] – via ''[[BlackPast]]'', March 15, 2012. Retrieved August 29, 2020.</ref> That month, on the 13th, Douglass's youngest daughter Annie died in [[Rochester, New York]], just days shy of her 11th birthday. Douglass sailed back from England the following month, traveling through Canada to avoid detection.

Years later, in 1881, Douglass shared a stage at Storer College in [[Harpers Ferry, West Virginia|Harpers Ferry]] with [[Andrew Hunter (lawyer)|Andrew Hunter]], the prosecutor who secured Brown's conviction and execution. Hunter congratulated Douglass.<ref name="douglassdover">{{Cite book |last=Douglass |first=Frederick |url=https://archive.org/details/johnbrownaddress00doug/page/n1/mode/2up |title=John Brown. An address by Frederick Douglass, at the fourteenth anniversary of Storer College, Harper's Ferry, West Virginia, May 30, 1881 |date=1881 |location=Dover, New Hampshire |publisher=Dover, N.H., Morning Star job printing house |pages=3–4}}</ref>

===Photography===
Douglass considered photography very important in ending slavery and racism, and believed that the camera would not lie, even in the hands of a racist white person, as photographs were an excellent counter to many racist caricatures, particularly in [[blackface]] [[minstrel show|minstrelsy]]. He was the most photographed American of the 19th century, consciously using photography to advance his political views.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=John Stauffer |url=http://books.wwnorton.com/books/picturing-frederick-douglass/ |title=Picturing Frederick Douglass: An Illustrated Biography of the Nineteenth Century's Most Photographed American |last2=Zoe Trodd |last3=Celeste-Marie Bernier |last4=Henry Louis Gates Jr. |last5=Kenneth B. Morris Jr. |date= 2015 |publisher=Liveright (imprint of Norton) |isbn=978-0-87140-468-8 |edition=revised |page=320 |format=hardcover |access-date=August 2, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160806065824/http://books.wwnorton.com/books/picturing-frederick-douglass/ |archive-date=August 6, 2016 }}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |last=David Brooks |author-link=David Brooks (journalist) |date=August 2, 2016 |title=How Artists Change the World |newspaper=[[The New York Times]] |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/02/opinion/how-artists-change-the-world.html |url-status=live |url-access=registration |access-date=August 2, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160805211005/http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/02/opinion/how-artists-change-the-world.html?_r=0 |archive-date=August 5, 2016}}{{cbignore}}</ref> He never smiled, specifically so as not to play into the racist caricature of a happy enslaved person. He tended to look directly into the camera and confront the viewer with a stern look.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Gregory |first=Jennifer Beeson |date=March 15, 2016 |title=Who's the most photographed American man of the 19th Century? Hint: It's not Lincoln |newspaper=[[The Washington Post]] |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/in-sight/wp/2016/03/15/douglass/ |url-status=live |access-date=August 3, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160822122637/https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/in-sight/wp/2016/03/15/douglass/ |archive-date=August 22, 2016}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |date=December 13, 2015 |title=Picture This: Frederick Douglass Was The Most Photographed Man Of His Time – interview by Michel Martin of John Stauffer, author of ''Picturing Frederick Douglass'' |work=NPR.org |publisher=NPR |url=https://www.npr.org/2015/12/13/459593474/picture-this-frederick-douglass-was-the-most-photographed-man-of-his-time |url-status=live |access-date=May 11, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160504082153/http://www.npr.org/2015/12/13/459593474/picture-this-frederick-douglass-was-the-most-photographed-man-of-his-time |archive-date=May 4, 2016}}</ref>

==Civil War years==
===Before the Civil War===
By the time of the Civil War, Douglass was one of the most famous black men in the country, known for his orations on the condition of the black race and on other issues such as [[women's rights]]. His eloquence gathered crowds at every location. His reception by leaders in England and Ireland added to his stature.

He had been seriously proposed for the congressional seat of his friend and supporter [[Gerrit Smith]], who declined to run again after his term ended in 1854.<ref>{{cite news
|title=Black Man Going to Congress
|newspaper=Weekly Raleigh Register
|location=[[Raleigh, North Carolina]]
|date=July 5, 1854
|page=1
|via=[[newspapers.com]]
|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/100176054/black-man-frederick-douglass-proposed/
|access-date=April 21, 2022
|archive-date=April 21, 2022
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220421141957/https://www.newspapers.com/clip/100176054/black-man-frederick-douglass-proposed/
|url-status=live
}}</ref><ref name=Bugle/> Smith recommended to him that he not run, because there were "strenuous objections" from members of Congress.<ref>{{cite news
|title=Letter from Gerrit Smith — Mr, Smith's Review of Congress and Sketches of its Leading Members. — He objects to Frederick Douglass
|newspaper=[[The New York Times]]
|first=Gerrit
|last=Smith
|author-link=Gerrit Smith
|date=September 2, 1854
|page=2
|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1854/09/02/archives/article-10-no-title.html
|access-date=April 24, 2022
|archive-date=April 24, 2022
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220424013808/https://www.nytimes.com/1854/09/02/archives/article-10-no-title.html
|url-status=live
}}</ref> The possibility "afflicted some with convulsions, others with panic, more with an astonishing flow of exceedingly select and nervous language", "giving vent to all sorts of linguistic enormities."<ref>{{cite news
|title=The Black and White Douglas
|newspaper=[[Wabash Courier]]
|location=[[Terre Haute, Indiana]]
|date=July 22, 1854
|via=[[Hoosier State Chronicles]]
|url=https://newspapers.library.in.gov/?a=d&d=WACO18540722&e=-------en-20--1--txt-txIN-%22Gerrit+smith%22------

}}</ref> If the House agreed to seat him, which was unlikely, all the Southern members would walk out, so the country would finally be split.<ref name=Bugle>{{cite news
|title=Frederick Douglass in Congress
|newspaper=[[The Anti-Slavery Bugle]]
|location=[[Salem, Ohio]]
|date=August 26, 1854
|page=2
|url=https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83035487/1854-08-26/ed-1/seq-2/
|access-date=April 21, 2022
|archive-date=April 21, 2022
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220421142000/https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83035487/1854-08-26/ed-1/seq-2/
|url-status=live
}}</ref><ref>{{cite news
|title=F. Douglass in Congress
|newspaper=[[Anti-Slavery Bugle]]
|date=August 5, 1854
|location=[[Salem, Ohio]]
|url=https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83035487/1854-08-05/ed-1/seq-1/#
|page=1}}</ref> No black person would serve in Congress until 1870, just after the passage of the [[Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution|Fifteenth Amendment]].

===Fight for emancipation and suffrage===
[[File:Men of Color Civil War Recruitment Broadside 1863.png|thumb|1863 broadside ''Men of Color to Arms!'', written by Douglass]]
Douglass and the abolitionists argued that because the aim of the Civil War was to end slavery, African Americans should be allowed to engage in the fight for their freedom. Douglass publicized this view in his newspapers and several speeches. After Lincoln had finally allowed black soldiers to serve in the Union army, Douglass helped the recruitment efforts, publishing his famous broadside ''Men of Color to Arms!'' on March 21, 1863.<ref>{{cite book |last=Blight |first=David W. |title=Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom |publisher=Simon & Schuster |year=2018 |isbn=978-1-4165-9031-6 |location=New York |author-link=David W. Blight |page=385}}</ref> His eldest son, Charles Douglass, joined the [[54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment]], but was ill for much of his service.<ref name="pbs.org" /> Lewis Douglass fought at the Battle of [[Fort Wagner]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=McFeely |first=William S. |author-link=William S. McFeely |url=https://archive.org/details/frederickdouglas00will_0 |title=Frederick Douglass |date=1991 |publisher=W. W. Norton & Company |isbn=978-0-393-02823-2 |location=New York |page=226 |url-access=registration}}</ref> Another son, Frederick Douglass Jr., also served as a recruiter.

With the North no longer obliged to return slaves to their owners in the South, Douglass fought for equality for his people. Douglass conferred with President [[Abraham Lincoln]] in 1863 on the treatment of black soldiers<ref>{{Cite book |last=McFeely |first=William S. |author-link=William S. McFeely |url=https://archive.org/details/frederickdouglas00will_0 |title=Frederick Douglass |date=1991 |publisher=W. W. Norton & Company |isbn=978-0-393-02823-2 |location=New York |page=229 |url-access=registration}}</ref> and on plans to move liberated slaves out of the South.

President Lincoln's [[Emancipation Proclamation]], which took effect on January 1, 1863, declared the freedom of all slaves in Confederate-held territory. (Slaves in Union-held areas were not covered because the proclamation was permissible under the Constitution only as a war measure; they were freed with the adoption of the 13th Amendment on December 6, 1865.) Douglass described the spirit of those awaiting the proclamation: "We were waiting and listening as for a bolt from the sky ... we were watching ... by the dim light of the stars for the dawn of a new day ... we were longing for the answer to the agonizing prayers of centuries."<ref>{{cite web |title=The Fight For Emancipation |url=http://www.history.rochester.edu/class/douglass/part4.html |archive-url=http://arquivo.pt/wayback/20090708000612/http://www.history.rochester.edu/class/douglass/part4.html |archive-date=July 8, 2009 |access-date=April 19, 2007}}</ref>

During the [[1864 United States presidential election|U.S. Presidential Election of 1864]], Douglass supported [[John C. Frémont#Presidential candidate Radical Democracy Party 1864|John C. Frémont]], who was the candidate of the abolitionist [[Radical Democracy Party (United States)|Radical Democracy Party]]. Douglass was disappointed that President Lincoln did not publicly endorse suffrage for black freedmen. Douglass believed that since African American men were fighting for the Union in the American Civil War, they deserved the right to vote.<ref>Stauffer (2008), ''Giants'', p. 280.</ref>

===After Lincoln's death===
The postwar ratification of the [[Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution|13th Amendment]], on December 6, 1865, outlawed slavery, "except as a punishment for crime." The [[Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution|14th Amendment]] provided for birthright citizenship and prohibited the states from abridging the privileges and immunities of citizens of the United States or denying any "person" due process of law or equal protection of the laws. The [[Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution|15th Amendment]] protected all citizens from being discriminated against in voting because of race.<ref name="DouglassO">{{Cite book |last1=Frederick Douglass |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IVIwdPfWvjMC&pg=PR11 |title=Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass, an American slave |last2=Robert G. O'Meally |date= 2003 |publisher=Spark Educational Publishing |isbn=978-1-59308-041-9 |page=xi |access-date=October 26, 2015 |archive-date=September 2, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210902004228/https://books.google.com/books?id=IVIwdPfWvjMC&pg=PR11 |url-status=live }}</ref> After Lincoln had been assassinated, Douglass conferred with President [[Andrew Johnson]] on the subject of black [[suffrage]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=McFeely |first=William S. |author-link=William S. McFeely |url=https://archive.org/details/frederickdouglas00will_0 |title=Frederick Douglass |date=1991 |publisher=W. W. Norton & Company |isbn=978-0-393-02823-2 |location=New York |page=247 |url-access=registration}}</ref>

[[File:Emancipation statue at Lincoln Park (14131873).jpg|thumb|upright|The keynote speaker at the unveiling of the [[Emancipation Memorial]], Douglass wrote a critique of the depiction of the black man "still on his knees".]]
On April 14, 1876, Douglass delivered the keynote speech at the unveiling of the [[Emancipation Memorial]] in Washington's Lincoln Park. He spoke frankly about the complex legacy of Lincoln, noting what he perceived as both positive and negative attributes of the late President.<ref name="Speech"/> Calling Lincoln "the white man's President," Douglass criticized Lincoln's tardiness in joining the cause of emancipation, noting that Lincoln initially opposed the expansion of slavery but did not support its elimination: "He had been ready and willing at any time during the first years of his administration to deny, postpone, and sacrifice the humanity of the colored people to promote the welfare of the white people. Lincoln was neither our man or our model".<ref name="Speech">{{cite news |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2020/06/27/emancipation-monument-in-washington-dc-targeted-by-protests/ |title=Frederick Douglass delivered a Lincoln reality check at Emancipation Memorial unveiling |newspaper=[[The Washington Post]] |date=June 27, 2020 |access-date=September 23, 2023|author=DeNeen L. Brown }}</ref> But Douglass also asked, "Can any colored man, or any white man friendly to the freedom of all men, ever forget the night which followed [[Emancipation Proclamation|the first day of January 1863]], when the world was to see if Abraham Lincoln would prove to be as good as his word?"<ref>{{cite web |date=n.d. |title=Oration in Memory of Abraham Lincoln by Frederick Douglass |url=http://www.teachingamericanhistory.org/library/index.asp?documentprint=39 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110427050628/http://www.teachingamericanhistory.org/library/index.asp?documentprint=39 |archive-date=April 27, 2011 |access-date=September 4, 2008 |publisher=Teaching American History}}</ref> He also said: "Though Mr. Lincoln shared the prejudices of his white fellow-countrymen against the Negro, it is hardly necessary to say that in his heart of hearts he loathed and hated slavery...." Most famously, he added: "Viewed from the genuine abolition ground, Mr. Lincoln seemed tardy, cold, dull, and indifferent; but measuring him by the sentiment of his country, a sentiment he was bound as a statesman to consult, he was swift, zealous, radical, and determined."<ref name="Speech"/>

The crowd, roused by his speech, gave Douglass a standing ovation. Lincoln's widow [[Mary Todd Lincoln|Mary Lincoln]] supposedly gave Lincoln's favorite [[walking-stick]] to Douglass in appreciation. That walking stick still rests in his final residence, "Cedar Hill" in Washington, D.C., now preserved as the [[Frederick Douglass National Historic Site]].

After delivering the speech, Douglass immediately wrote to the National Republican newspaper in Washington (which published his letter five days later, on April 19), criticizing the statue's design and suggesting the park could be improved by more dignified monuments of free black people. "The negro here, though rising, is still on his knees and nude," Douglass wrote. "What I want to see before I die is a monument representing the negro, not couchant on his knees like a four-footed animal, but erect on his feet like a man."<ref>{{Cite news |last=Mann |first=Ted |date=July 4, 2020 |title=How a Lincoln-Douglass Debate Led to Historic Discovery: Texting exchange by two professors led to Frederick Douglass letter on Emancipation Memorial |work=wsj.com |publisher=Wall Street Journal |url=https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-a-lincoln-douglass-debate-led-to-historic-discovery-11593869400 |url-status=live |access-date=July 4, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200704155204/https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-a-lincoln-douglass-debate-led-to-historic-discovery-11593869400 |archive-date=July 4, 2020}}</ref>

==Reconstruction era==
[[File:George Kendall Warren - Frederick Douglass - Google Art Project.jpg|thumb|upright|Frederick Douglass in 1876, around 58 years of age]]

After the Civil War, Douglass continued to work for equality for African Americans and women. Due to his prominence and activism during the war, Douglass received several political appointments. He served as president of the [[Reconstruction era of the United States|Reconstruction]]-era [[Freedman's Savings Bank]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=McFeely |first=William S. |author-link=William S. McFeely |url=https://archive.org/details/frederickdouglas00will_0 |title=Frederick Douglass |date=1991 |publisher=W. W. Norton & Company |isbn=978-0-393-02823-2 |location=New York |page=283 |url-access=registration}}</ref>

Meanwhile, white insurgents had quickly arisen in the South after the war, organizing first as secret [[vigilante]] groups, including the [[Ku Klux Klan]]. Armed insurgency took different forms. Powerful paramilitary groups included the [[White League]] and the [[Red Shirts (Southern United States)|Red Shirts]], both active during the 1870s in the Deep South. They operated as "the military arm of the Democratic Party", turning out Republican officeholders and disrupting elections.<ref>[[George C. Rable]], ''But There Was No Peace: The Role of Violence in the Politics of Reconstruction'', Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1984, p. 132.</ref> Starting 10 years after the war, Democrats regained political power in every state of the former Confederacy and began to reassert [[white supremacy]]. They enforced this by a combination of violence, late 19th-century laws imposing [[racial segregation in the United States|segregation]] and a concerted effort to [[Disenfranchisement after the Reconstruction Era|disfranchise]] African Americans. New labor and criminal laws also limited their freedom.<ref>[[Richard Pildes|Richard H. Pildes]], [https://ssrn.com/abstract=224731 "Democracy, Anti-Democracy, and the Canon"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181121211213/https://ssrn.com/abstract=224731|date=November 21, 2018}}, ''Constitutional Commentary'', Vol. 17, 2000, pp. 12–13. Retrieved March 10, 2008.</ref>

To combat these efforts, Douglass supported the presidential campaign of [[Ulysses S. Grant]] in [[1868 United States presidential election|1868]]. In 1870, Douglass started his last newspaper, the ''[[New National Era]]'', attempting to hold his country to its commitment to equality.<ref name="pbs.org" /> President Grant sent a congressionally sponsored commission, accompanied by Douglass, on a mission to the West Indies to investigate whether the annexation of Santo Domingo would be good for the United States. Grant believed annexation would help relieve the violent situation in the South by allowing African Americans their own state. Douglass and the commission favored annexation, but Congress remained opposed to annexation. Douglass criticized Senator [[Charles Sumner]], who opposed annexation, stating that if Sumner continued to oppose annexation he would "regard him as the worst foe the colored race has on this continent."<ref>Brands (2012), ''The Man Who Saved the Union: Ulysses Grant in War and Peace'', p. 462.</ref>

[[File:2000-2008 17th Street, NW.JPG|thumb|Douglass's former residence in the [[U Street Corridor]] of Washington, D.C. He built 2000–2004 17th Street, [[Northwest, Washington, D.C.|NW]], in 1875.]]

After the midterm elections, Grant signed the [[Civil Rights Act of 1871]] (also known as the Ku Klux Klan Act) and the second and third [[Enforcement Acts]]. Grant used their provisions vigorously, suspending ''[[habeas corpus]]'' in South Carolina and sending troops there and into other states. Under his leadership over 5,000 arrests were made. Grant's vigor in disrupting the Klan made him unpopular among many whites but earned praise from Douglass. A Douglass associate wrote that African Americans "will ever cherish a grateful remembrance of [Grant's] name, fame and great services."

In 1872, Douglass became the first African American nominated for Vice President of the United States, as [[Victoria Woodhull]]'s running mate on the [[National Equal Rights Party|Equal Rights Party]] ticket. He was nominated without his knowledge. Douglass neither campaigned for the ticket nor acknowledged that he had been nominated.<ref name="VP">{{Cite book |last=Trotman |first=C. James |title=Frederick Douglass: A Biography |publisher=Penguin Books |year=2011 |isbn=978-0-313-35036-8 |pages=118–119}}</ref> In that year, he was [[presidential elector]] at large for the [[State of New York]], and took that state's votes to Washington, D.C.<ref>{{Cite encyclopedia |year=1879 |title=Douglass, Frederick |encyclopedia=[[American Cyclopedia]] |publisher=[[D. Appleton and Company]] |location=New York |url=https://archive.org/stream/americancyclopae06ripluoft#page/228/mode/2up |access-date=February 9, 2015 |volume=6 |page=228}}</ref>

However, in early June of that year, Douglass's third Rochester home, on South Avenue, burned down; arson was suspected. There was extensive damage to the house, its furnishings, and the grounds; in addition, sixteen volumes of the ''North Star'' and ''Frederick Douglass' Paper'' were lost. Douglass then moved to Washington, D.C.<ref>{{cite book |last=Blight |first=David W. |author-link=David W. Blight |title=Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom |publisher=Simon & Schuster |year=2018 |isbn=978-1-4165-9031-6 |location=New York |pages=471–474}}</ref>

Throughout the Reconstruction era, Douglass continued speaking, emphasizing the importance of work, voting rights and actual exercise of suffrage. His speeches for the twenty-five years following the war emphasized work to counter the racism that was then prevalent in unions.<ref>Olasky, Marvin. "History turned right side up". ''World magazine''. February 13, 2010. p. 22.</ref> In a November 15, 1867, speech he said: {{blockquote|''...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.''<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Robin Van Auken |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zFclDyk2LTEC&pg=PA57 |title=Williamsport: Boomtown on the Susquehanna |last2=Louis E Hunsinger |publisher=Arcadia Publishing |year=2003 |isbn=978-0-7385-2438-2 |page=57 |access-date=October 26, 2015 |archive-date=May 1, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160501101215/https://books.google.com/books?id=zFclDyk2LTEC&pg=PA57 |url-status=live }}</ref>}}Douglass spoke at many colleges around the country, including [[Bates College]] in [[Lewiston, Maine]], in 1873.

In 1881, at [[Storer College]] in [[Harpers Ferry, West Virginia]], Douglass delivered a speech praising John Brown and revealing unknown information about their relationship, including their meeting in an abandoned stone quarry near Chambersburg shortly before the raid.<ref name="douglassdover" />

==Frederick Douglass House==
{{Main|Frederick Douglass National Historic Site}}

In 1877 Frederick Douglass bought a house that included a big yard, as well as a studio where he did most of his work; he lived in this house from 1878 until his death in 1895, and it was named the Frederick Douglass National Historic Site.

==Final years in Washington, D.C.==
The Freedman's Savings Bank went bankrupt on June 29, 1874, just a few months after Douglass became its president in late March.<ref>{{cite web |date=March 3, 2015 |title=The Freedman's Savings Bank: Good Intentions Were Not Enough; A Noble Experiment Goes Awry |url=https://www.occ.gov/about/what-we-do/history/freedman-savings-bank.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201221122602/https://www.occ.gov/about/who-we-are/history/1863-1865/1863-1865-freedmans-savings-bank.html |archive-date=December 21, 2020 |access-date=September 21, 2017 |website=occ.gov}}</ref> During that same economic crisis, his final newspaper, ''The New National Era'', failed in September.<ref>{{cite web |title=Frederick Douglass Chronology – Frederick Douglass National Historic Site (U.S. National Park Service) |url=https://www.nps.gov/frdo/learn/historyculture/frederick-douglass-chronology.htm |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170922101349/https://www.nps.gov/frdo/learn/historyculture/frederick-douglass-chronology.htm |archive-date=September 22, 2017 |access-date=September 21, 2017 |website=nps.gov}}</ref> When Republican [[Rutherford B. Hayes]] was elected president, he named Douglass [[United States Marshal]] for the [[Washington, D.C.|District of Columbia]], making him the first person of color to be so named. The [[United States Senate]] voted to confirm him on March 17, 1877.<ref>{{cite web |date=March 18, 2021 |title=On this Day |url=http://links.si.mkt6346.com/servlet/MailView?ms=NDQ2NDc0MTIS1&r=NzQwNDUzNzY2MzMS1&j=MTk2MTUzNjUzMwS2&mt=1&rt=0 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210413200749/http://links.si.mkt6346.com/servlet/MailView?ms=NDQ2NDc0MTIS1&r=NzQwNDUzNzY2MzMS1&j=MTk2MTUzNjUzMwS2&mt=1&rt=0 |archive-date=April 13, 2021 |access-date=March 18, 2021 |website=Smithsonian magazine}}</ref> Douglass accepted the appointment, which helped assure his family's financial security.<ref name="pbs.org" /> During his tenure, Douglass was urged by his supporters to resign from his commission, since he was never asked to introduce visiting foreign dignitaries to the President, which is one of the usual duties of that post. However, Douglass believed that no [[covert racism]] was implied by the omission and stated that he was always warmly welcomed in presidential circles.<ref>{{cite web |last=Frederick S. Calhoun |title=History – Loyal to their Communities |url=https://www.usmarshals.gov/history/loyal_community.htm |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210320115104/https://www.usmarshals.gov/history/loyal_community.htm |archive-date=March 20, 2021 |access-date=March 18, 2021 |website=US Marshals Service|date=June 15, 2020 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Frederick Douglass |url=https://www.whitehousehistory.org/frederick-douglass |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210321151922/https://www.whitehousehistory.org/frederick-douglass |archive-date=March 21, 2021 |access-date=March 18, 2021 |website=[[The White House Historical Association]]}}</ref>

[[File:Frederick Douglass House.jpg|thumb|''[[Frederick Douglass National Historic Site|Cedar Hill]]'', Douglass's house in the [[Anacostia Historic District|Anacostia]] neighborhood of Washington, D.C., is preserved as a [[List of areas in the United States National Park System#National historic sites|National Historic Site]].]]

In 1877, Douglass visited his former enslaver Thomas Auld on his deathbed, and the two men reconciled. Douglass had met Auld's daughter, Amanda Auld Sears, some years prior. She had requested the meeting and had subsequently attended and cheered one of Douglass's speeches. Her father complimented her for reaching out to Douglass. The visit also appears to have brought closure to Douglass, although some criticized his effort.<ref name="Finkelman2006-105" />

That same year, Douglass bought the house that was to be the family's final home in Washington, D.C., on a hill above the [[Anacostia River]]. He and Anna named it ''Cedar Hill'' (also spelled ''CedarHill''). They expanded the house from 14 to 21 rooms and included a china closet. One year later, Douglass purchased adjoining lots and expanded the property to 15&nbsp;acres (61,000&nbsp;m<sup>2</sup>). The home is now preserved as the [[Frederick Douglass National Historic Site]].

In 1881, Douglass published the final edition of his autobiography, ''The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass'', which he updated in 1892. In 1881, he was appointed [[Recorder of Deeds]] for the District of Columbia. His wife Anna Murray Douglass died in 1882, leaving the widower devastated. After a period of mourning, Douglass found new meaning from working with activist [[Ida B. Wells]]. He remarried in 1884, as mentioned above.

Douglass also continued his speaking engagements and travel, both in the United States and abroad. With new wife Helen, Douglass toured the UK<ref name="Wilson2019">{{cite book |last1=Wilson |first1=Jen |title=Freedom Music: Wales, Emancipation and Jazz 1850-1950 |year=2019 |publisher=University of Wales Press |isbn=978-1-78683-408-9 |page=72 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=48ObDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA72}}</ref> including Wales (possibly by invitation from abolitionist [[Jessie Donaldson]]), Ireland, France, Italy, Egypt, and Greece from 1886 to 1887. He became known for advocating [[Irish Home Rule]] and supported [[Charles Stewart Parnell]] in Ireland.

At the [[1888 Republican National Convention]], Douglass became the first African American to receive a vote for President of the United States in a [[major party]]'s roll call vote.<ref>{{cite news |date=August 26, 2008 |title=Think You Know Your Democratic Convention Trivia? |website=CNN Politics |url=http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/08/25/dems.convention.trivia/index.html |url-status=live |access-date=May 2, 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100601080858/http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/08/25/dems.convention.trivia/index.html |archive-date=June 1, 2010}}</ref> That year, Douglass spoke at [[Claflin University|Claflin College]], a [[historically black college]] in [[Orangeburg, South Carolina]], and the state's oldest such institution.<ref>Richard Reid, [http://www.thetandd.com/article_356cbc9e-3e10-11e0-883e-001cc4c03286.html "The Gloria Rackley-Blackwell story"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190727045943/https://thetandd.com/article_356cbc9e-3e10-11e0-883e-001cc4c03286.html|date=July 27, 2019}} ''The Times and Democrat'' (February 22, 2011). Retrieved June 3, 2011.</ref>

Many African Americans, called [[Exoduster]]s, escaped the Klan and racially discriminatory laws in the South by moving to [[Kansas]], where some formed all-black towns to have a greater level of freedom and autonomy. Douglass favored neither this nor the [[Back-to-Africa movement]]. He thought the latter resembled the [[American Colonization Society]], which he had opposed in his youth. In 1892, at an Indianapolis conference convened by Bishop [[Henry McNeal Turner]], Douglass spoke out against the separatist movements, urging African Americans to stick it out.<ref name="pbs.org" /> He made similar speeches as early as 1879 and was criticized both by fellow leaders and some audiences, who even booed him for this position.<ref>{{Cite book |last=McFeely |first=William S. |author-link=William S. McFeely |url=https://archive.org/details/frederickdouglas00will_0 |title=Frederick Douglass |date=1991 |publisher=W. W. Norton & Company |isbn=978-0-393-02823-2 |location=New York |page=300 |url-access=registration}}</ref> Speaking in Baltimore in 1894, Douglass said, "I hope and trust all will come out right in the end, but the immediate future looks dark and troubled. I cannot shut my eyes to the ugly facts before me."<ref>[[Wilkerson, Isabel]], ''[[The Warmth of Other Suns]]'' (2010), p. 40.</ref>

President [[Benjamin Harrison|Harrison]] appointed Douglass as the United States's minister resident and [[consul-general]] to the [[Republic of Haiti]] and [[Chargé d'affaires]] for [[Dominican Republic|Santo Domingo]] in 1889,<ref name="sears">{{Cite journal |last=Louis Martin Sears |date=May 1941 |title=Frederick Douglass and the Mission to Haiti, 1889–1891 |journal=The Hispanic American Historical Review |volume=21 |pages=222–238 |doi=10.2307/2507394 |jstor=2507394 |number=2}}</ref> but Douglass resigned the commission in July 1891 when it became apparent that the American President was intent upon gaining permanent access to Haitian territory regardless of that country's desires.<ref>{{cite web |last=Brandon Byrd |date=February 11, 2017 |title=Frederick Douglass, Haiti, and Diplomacy |url=https://www.aaihs.org/frederick-douglass-haiti-and-diplomacy/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210311054331/https://www.aaihs.org/frederick-douglass-haiti-and-diplomacy/ |archive-date=March 11, 2021 |access-date=March 18, 2021 |website=Black Perspectives}}</ref> In 1892, Haiti made Douglass a co-commissioner of its pavilion at the [[World's Columbian Exposition]] in Chicago.<ref>{{Cite book |last=David B. Chesebrough |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BHZKP9jEd2EC&q=haiti%20douglass%20columbian&pg=PA78 |title=Frederick Douglass: Oratory from Slavery |date=1998 |publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group |isbn=978-0-313-30287-9 |page=78 |access-date=October 9, 2020 |archive-date=December 21, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201221122601/https://books.google.com/books?id=BHZKP9jEd2EC&q=haiti+douglass+columbian&pg=PA78 |url-status=live }}</ref>

In 1892, Douglass constructed rental housing for blacks, now known as [[Douglass Place]], in the [[Fells Point]] area of Baltimore. The complex still exists, and in 2003 was listed on the [[National Register of Historic Places]].<ref>{{NRISref|2008a|dateform=dmy}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |date=November 21, 2008 |title=Maryland Historical Trust |url={{MHT url|id=764}} |website=Douglass Place, Baltimore City |publisher=Maryland Historical Trust}}</ref>

==Death==
[[File:Frederick Douglass gravestone (2018).jpg|thumb|The gravestone of Frederick Douglass, located in [[Mount Hope Cemetery, Rochester]]]]

On February 20, 1895, Douglass attended a meeting of the National Council of Women in Washington, D.C. During that meeting, he was brought to the platform and received a standing ovation. Shortly after he returned home, Douglass died of a massive heart attack.<ref name="frederick-douglass-heritage.org">{{cite web |title=Later Years and Death |url=http://www.frederick-douglass-heritage.org/later-years-death/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201221122559/http://www.frederick-douglass-heritage.org/later-years-death/ |archive-date=December 21, 2020 |access-date=September 21, 2017 |website=Frederick Douglass Heritage}}</ref> He was 77.

His funeral was held at the [[Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church]].   Although Douglass had attended several churches in the nation's capital, he had a pew here and had donated two standing candelabras when this church had moved to a new building in 1886. He also gave many lectures there, including his last major speech, "The Lesson of the Hour."<ref name="religionnews.com" />

Thousands of people passed by his coffin to show their respect. United States senators and Supreme Court justices were [[pallbearer]]s. [[Jeremiah Rankin]], President of [[Howard University]], delivered "a masterly address". A letter from [[Elizabeth Cady Stanton]] was read. The Secretary of the Haitian Legation "expressed the condolence of his country in melodious French."<ref>{{cite news
|title=Frederick Douglass Still Lives
|first=Kate
|last=Field
|author-link=Kate Field
|journal=Kate Field's Washington
|volume=11
|number=9
|date=March 2, 1895
|url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.c2605441&view=1up&seq=170
|access-date=March 22, 2022
|archive-date=March 22, 2022
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220322140313/https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.c2605441&view=1up&seq=170
|url-status=live
}}</ref>

Douglass's coffin was transported to [[Rochester, New York]], where he had lived for 25 years, longer than anywhere else in his life. His body was received in state at City Hall, flags were flown at half mast, and schools adjourned.<ref>{{cite journal
|title=A Life of Contrasts
|first=Kate
|last=Field
|author-link=Kate Field
|volume=11
|number=16
|pages=253–254
|url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.c2605441&view=1up&seq=280
|journal=Kate Field's Washington
|date=April 20, 1895
|access-date=March 20, 2022
|archive-date=March 22, 2022
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220322140311/https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.c2605441&view=1up&seq=280
|url-status=live
}}</ref> He was buried next to Anna in the Douglass family plot of [[Mount Hope Cemetery, Rochester|Mount Hope Cemetery]], Rochester's premier memorial park.<ref name=Freethought/> Helen was also buried there, in 1903. His grave is, with that of [[Susan B. Anthony]], the most visited in the cemetery.<ref name=Freethought>{{cite web
|title=Frederick Douglass Grave Site
|publisher=The Freethought Trail
|url=http://www.freethought-trail.org/site.php?By=SiteType&Page=3&Site=50
|url-status=live
|year=2022
 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150924015517/http://www.freethought-trail.org/site.php?By=SiteType&Page=3&Site=50
 |archive-date=September 24, 2015
|access-date=March 17, 2022 }}</ref> A marker, erected by the [[University of Rochester]] and other friends, describes him as "escaped slave, abolitionist, suffragist, journalist and statesman, founder of the [[Civil Rights Movement]] in America".<ref name=Freethought/>

==Works==
===Writings===
* 1845. ''[[Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave]], Written by Himself'' (first autobiography).
* 1853. "[[The Heroic Slave]]." pp.&nbsp;174–239 in ''Autographs for Freedom'', edited by [[Julia Griffiths]]. Boston: [[John P. Jewett|Jewett and Company]].
* 1855. ''[[My Bondage and My Freedom]]'' (second autobiography).
* 1881 (revised 1892). ''[[Life and Times of Frederick Douglass]]'' (third and final autobiography).
* 1847–1851. ''[[The North Star (anti-slavery newspaper)|The North Star]]'', an abolitionist newspaper founded and edited by Douglass. He merged the paper with another, creating the ''Frederick Douglass' Paper''.
* 1886. ''[[gutenberg:67919|Three Addresses on the Relations Subsisting between the White and Colored People of the United States]]'', at Gutenberg.org
* 2012. ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=A_2tDwAAQBAJ In the Words of Frederick Douglass: Quotations from Liberty's Champion]'', edited by John R. McKivigan and Heather L. Kaufman. Ithaca: [[Cornell University Press]]. {{ISBN|978-0-8014-4790-7}}.

===Speeches===
* 1841. "The Church and Prejudice"<ref>{{cite web |date=March 15, 2012 |title=(1841) Frederick Douglass, "The Church and Prejudice" |url=https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/1841-frederick-douglass-church-and-prejudice/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190812125220/https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/1841-frederick-douglass-church-and-prejudice/ |archive-date=August 12, 2019 |access-date=August 12, 2019 |website=blackpast.org}}</ref>
* 1852. "[[What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?]]"<ref>{{cite web |title=Frederick Douglass Project: "Fourth of July" Speech – RBSCP |url=http://www.lib.rochester.edu/index.cfm?page=2945 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201125025557/https://rbscp.lib.rochester.edu/2945 |archive-date=November 25, 2020 |access-date=November 27, 2010 |website=Lib.rochester.edu}}</ref> In 2020, National Public Radio produced a video of descendants of Douglass reading excerpts from the speech.<ref>{{cite web |title='What To The Slave Is The Fourth Of July?': Descendants Read Frederick Douglass' Speech &#124; NPR – YouTube |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBe5qbnkqoM |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200707001641/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBe5qbnkqoM |archive-date=July 7, 2020 |access-date=July 7, 2020 |website=www.youtube.com| date=July 3, 2020 }}</ref>
* 1859. ''[[Self-Made Men (Frederick Douglass)|Self-Made Men]]''.<ref>{{cite web |title=Self-Made Men The Objective Standard |url=https://theobjectivestandard.com/2018/02/self-made-men/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210709184345/https://theobjectivestandard.com/2018/02/self-made-men/ |archive-date=July 9, 2021 |access-date=July 8, 2021 |website=theobjectivestandard.com|date=February 21, 2018 }}</ref>
* 1863, July 6. "Speech at National Hall, for the Promotion of Colored Enlistments."<ref>{{cite web |year=1863 |title=Addresses of the Hon. W. D. Kelley, Miss Anna E. Dickinson, and Mr. Frederick Douglass: at a mass meeting, held at National Hall, Philadelphia, July 6, 1863, for the promotion of colored enlistments |url=https://archive.org/stream/addressesofhonwd00kell#page/n3/mode/2up |access-date=March 17, 2015 |website=Archive.org |publisher=Philadelphia, Pa. : s.n.}}</ref>
* 1881.<ref name="douglassdover"/>

===Poetry===
* 1847. "Liberty", an eight-line poem, was written by Frederick Douglass in his notebook on September 13, 1847, in Cleveland, Ohio. Since mid-August he and William Lloyd Garrison, on a Western tour for the abolitionist movement, had been traveling through Ohio, where their receptions ranged from hospitable to enthusiastic. This raised Douglass's spirits considerably after he had faced an onslaught of "rotten eggs and all manner of stones and brickbats" while speaking a few weeks earlier in the courthouse at Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.<ref>{{cite book|author=David W. Blight|title=Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom|year=2018|publisher=Simon & Schuster|page=186}}</ref> As a result of his receptions in Ohio, he was moved to write poetry on at least one other occasion in that state after he had written the poem "Liberty". The handwritten poem is now held in the [[Xavier University of Louisiana]], Archives & Special Collections.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Douglass |first=Frederick |title=Handwritten Poem Titled "Liberty" by Frederick Douglass |url=https://xula.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/FDouglass/id/0/rec/1 |access-date=July 10, 2023 |website=Xavier University of Louisiana, Digital Archives}}</ref>

==Legacy and honors==
{{Further|African American founding fathers of the United States|List of things named after Frederick Douglass}}

[[File:FREDERICK DOUGLASS - STATESMAN, ABOLITIONIST, CHAMPION OF THE PEOPLE - NARA - 535673.jpg|thumb|A poster from the [[Office of War Information]], Domestic Operations Branch, News Bureau, 1943]]
[[File:Frederick Douglas, US Postage, 25c.jpg|thumb|A 1965 [[U.S. postage stamp]], published during the upsurge of the [[civil rights movement]]]]
Biographer [[David Blight]] states that Douglass "played a pivotal role in America's Second Founding out of the apocalypse of the Civil War, and he very much wished to see himself as a founder and a defender of the Second American Republic."<ref>David W. Blight, ''Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom'' (Simon and Schuster, 2018) p. xv.</ref>

Roy Finkenbine argues:<ref>Finkenbine, Roy E. 2000. "[http://www.anb.org/articles/15/15-00186.html Douglass, Frederick] {{Webarchive|url=https://archive.today/20161224044829/http://www.anb.org/articles/15/15-00186.html |date=December 24, 2016 }}." ''[[American National Biography]]''. Retrieved on March 16, 2016.</ref>

<blockquote>The most influential African American of the nineteenth century, Douglass made a career of agitating the American conscience. He spoke and wrote on behalf of a variety of reform causes: women's rights, temperance, peace, land reform, free public education, and the abolition of capital punishment. But he devoted the bulk of his time, immense talent, and boundless energy to ending slavery and gaining equal rights for African Americans. These were the central concerns of his long reform career. Douglass understood that the struggle for emancipation and equality demanded forceful, persistent, and unyielding agitation. And he recognized that African Americans must play a conspicuous role in that struggle. Less than a month before his death, when a young black man solicited his advice to an African American just starting out in the world, Douglass replied without hesitation: ″Agitate! Agitate! Agitate!″</blockquote>

[[Episcopal Church (United States)|The Episcopal Church]] remembers Douglass with a [[Lesser Feasts and Fasts|Lesser Feast]]<ref>{{cite web |title=Lesser Feasts and Fasts 2018 |url=https://extranet.generalconvention.org/staff/files/download/21034 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210125225221/https://extranet.generalconvention.org/staff/files/download/21034 |archive-date=January 25, 2021 |access-date=May 7, 2021 |publisher=General Convention of the Episcopal Church}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Frederick Douglass |url=http://satucket.com/lectionary/frederick_douglass.htm |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210220183747/http://satucket.com/lectionary/frederick_douglass.htm |archive-date=February 20, 2021 |access-date=May 7, 2021 |website=satucket.com}}</ref> annually on its [[Calendar of saints (Episcopal Church)|liturgical calendar]] for February 20,<ref>{{cite web |title=Holy Women, Holy Men: Celebrating the Saints |url=https://diobeth.typepad.com/files/holy-women-holy-men.pdf |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210410153415/https://diobeth.typepad.com/files/holy-women-holy-men.pdf |archive-date=April 10, 2021 |access-date=April 10, 2021}}</ref> the anniversary of his death. Many public schools have also been named in his honor. Douglass still has living descendants today, such as Ken Morris, who is also a descendant of [[Booker T. Washington]].<ref>{{cite web |last=Axelrod |first=Jim |author-link=Jim Axelrod |date=June 19, 2013 |title=Family of abolitionist Frederick Douglass continues his legacy |url=http://www.cbsnews.com/news/family-of-abolitionist-frederick-douglass-continues-his-legacy/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170527073343/http://www.cbsnews.com/news/family-of-abolitionist-frederick-douglass-continues-his-legacy/ |archive-date=May 27, 2017 |access-date=May 23, 2017 |website=CBS News}}</ref> Other honors and remembrances include:
* In 1871, a bust of Douglass was unveiled at [[Sibley Hall]], [[University of Rochester]].<ref>{{Cite news |author=((Letter reprinted in ''[[The New York Times]]'', July 2, 1879)) |date=June 28, 1879 |title=Frederick Douglass |page=2 |work=[[Democrat and Chronicle]] |location=[[Rochester, New York]] |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/80712545/bust-of-frederick-douglass/ |url-status=live |access-date=July 3, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210709183335/https://www.newspapers.com/clip/80712545/bust-of-frederick-douglass/ |archive-date=July 9, 2021 |via=[[newspapers.com]]}}</ref>
* In 1895, the first hospital for black people in Philadelphia, PA was named the Frederick Douglass Memorial Hospital. Black medical professionals, excluded from other facilities, were trained and employed there. In 1948, it merged to form Mercy-Douglass Hospital.<ref>[https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=82576 Frederick Douglass Memorial Hospital historical marker] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210924012142/https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=82576 |date=September 24, 2021 }} erected by the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission in 1992.</ref>
* In 1899, a [[statue of Frederick Douglass (Rochester, New York)|statue of Frederick Douglass]] was unveiled in [[Rochester, New York]], making Douglass the first African-American to be so memorialized in the country.<ref>{{Cite book |title=Visualising Slavery: Art Across the African Diaspora |date=2016 |publisher=Liverpool University Press |isbn=978-1-78138-429-9 |editor-last=Bernier |editor-first=Celeste-Marie |location=Liverpool |page=132 |editor-last2=Durkin |editor-first2=Hannah}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last1=Miller |first1=Ryan |last2=Craig |first2=Gary |date=July 5, 2020 |title=Frederick Douglass statue vandalized on anniversary of his famous Fourth of July Rochester speech |url=https://www.democratandchronicle.com/story/news/2020/07/05/frederick-douglass-statue-rochester-ny-removed-defaced-anniversary-july-4th-speech/5380432002/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201221122602/https://www.democratandchronicle.com/story/news/2020/07/05/frederick-douglass-statue-rochester-ny-removed-defaced-anniversary-july-4th-speech/5380432002/ |archive-date=December 21, 2020 |access-date=July 6, 2020 |website=[[Democrat and Chronicle]]}}</ref>
* In 1921, members of the [[Alpha Phi Alpha]] fraternity (the first African-American intercollegiate fraternity) designated Frederick Douglass as an honorary member. Douglass thus became the only man to receive an honorary membership posthumously.<ref>{{cite web |title=Prominent Alpha Men |url=http://www.albany.edu/~aphia/newsite/famousas.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071014054223/http://albany.edu/~aphia/newsite/famousas.html |archive-date=October 14, 2007 |access-date=May 6, 2007}}</ref>
* The [[Frederick Douglass Memorial Bridge]], sometimes referred to as the South Capitol Street Bridge, just south of the [[US Capitol]] in Washington, D.C., was built in 1950 and named in his honor.
* In 1962, his home in [[Anacostia]] (Washington, D.C.) became part of the National Park System<ref>{{Cite news |date=September 6, 1962 |title=Frederick Douglass Bill is Approved by President: Bill making F Douglass home, Washington, D.C., part of natl pk system signed |work=The New York Times}}</ref> and in 1988 was designated the [[Frederick Douglass National Historic Site]].
* In 1965, the [[United States Postal Service]] honored Douglass with a stamp in the [[Prominent Americans series]].
* In 1999, [[Yale University]] established the [[Frederick Douglass Book Prize]] for works in the history of slavery and abolition, in his honor. The annual $25,000 prize is administered by the Gilder Lehrman Institute for American History and the [[Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition]] at Yale.
* In 2002, scholar [[Molefi Kete Asante]] named Frederick Douglass to his list of ''[[100 Greatest African Americans]]''.<ref>[[Molefi Kete Asante|Asante, Molefi Kete]] (2002). ''100 Greatest African Americans: A Biographical Encyclopedia''. Amherst, New York. Prometheus Books. {{ISBN|1-57392-963-8}}.</ref>
* In 2003, [[Douglass Place]], the rental housing units that Douglass built in Baltimore in 1892 for blacks, was listed on the [[National Register of Historic Places]].
* In 2005, Douglass was inducted into the [[National Abolition Hall of Fame]], in [[Peterboro, New York]].
* In 2007, the former Troup–Howell Bridge, which carried Interstate 490 over the [[Genesee River]] in Rochester, was redesigned and renamed the [[Frederick Douglass&nbsp;– Susan B. Anthony Memorial Bridge]].
* In 2010, the [[Frederick Douglass Memorial]] was unveiled at [[Frederick Douglass Circle]] at the northwest corner of [[Central Park]] in New York City.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Clines |first=Francis X. |author-link=Francis X. Clines |date=November 3, 2006 |title=Summoning Frederick Douglass |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/03/opinion/03fri4.html |url-status=live |access-date=February 21, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181009133655/https://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/03/opinion/03fri4.html |archive-date=October 9, 2018}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |last=Dominus |first=Susan |date=May 21, 2010 |title=A Slow Tribute That Might Try the Subject's Patience |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/22/nyregion/22bigcity.html |url-status=live |access-date=July 12, 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100527233552/http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/22/nyregion/22bigcity.html |archive-date=May 27, 2010}}</ref>
* In 2010, the [[New York Writers Hall of Fame]] inducted Douglass in its inaugural class.
* On June 12, 2011, Talbot County, Maryland, installed a seven-foot (2-meter) bronze statue of Douglass on the lawn of the county courthouse in [[Easton, Maryland]].<ref>{{Cite news |last=Holt |first=Dustin |date=June 12, 2011 |title=Douglass statue arrives in Easton |work=[[The Star Democrat]] |url=http://www.stardem.com/news/local_news/article_9e0593e4-7451-5169-ad2d-19dd35652672.html |url-status=live |access-date=July 12, 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110617043016/http://www.stardem.com/news/local_news/article_9e0593e4-7451-5169-ad2d-19dd35652672.html |archive-date=June 17, 2011}}</ref>
* On June 19, 2013, a [[Frederick Douglass (Weitzman)|statue of Douglass]] by Maryland artist [[Steven Weitzman (sculptor)|Steven Weitzman]] was unveiled<ref>[https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/frederick-douglass-statue-unveiled-in-the-capitol/2013/06/19/6542c926-d914-11e2-a9f2-42ee3912ae0e_gallery.html "Frederick Douglass statue unveiled in the Capitol"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180209002703/https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/frederick-douglass-statue-unveiled-in-the-capitol/2013/06/19/6542c926-d914-11e2-a9f2-42ee3912ae0e_gallery.html|date=February 9, 2018}}, June 19, 2013.</ref> in the [[United States Capitol Visitor Center]] as part of the [[National Statuary Hall Collection]], the first statue representing the [[Washington, D.C.|District of Columbia]].<ref>{{cite web |title=Frederick Douglass – Architect of the Capitol – United States Capitol |url=http://www.aoc.gov/capitol-hill/other-statues/frederick-douglass |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201221122608/https://www.aoc.gov/explore-capitol-campus/art/frederick-douglass |archive-date=December 21, 2020 |access-date=March 17, 2015 |website=Aoc.gov}}</ref>
* On September 15, 2014, under the leadership of Governor [[Martin O'Malley]] a portrait of Frederick Douglass was unveiled at his official residence in [[Annapolis, MD]]. This painting, by artist [[Simmie Knox]], is the first African-American portrait to grace the walls of Government House. Commissioned by [[Eddie C. Brown]], founder of Brown Capital Management, LLC,<ref>{{cite web |title=Brown Capital Management Founder and Wife Help Make Maryland History – Brown Capital |url=http://browncapital.com/citizenship/brown-capital-management-founder-and-wife-help-make-maryland-history |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150703014006/http://browncapital.com/citizenship/brown-capital-management-founder-and-wife-help-make-maryland-history |archive-date=July 3, 2015 |access-date=March 17, 2015 |website=Browncapital.com}}</ref> the painting was presented at a reception by the Governor.
* On January 7, 2015, in honor of Governor [[Martin O'Malley]]'s last Board of Public Works meeting, a portrait of Frederick Douglass was presented to him by [[Peter Franchot]].<ref>{{cite web |title=State of Maryland Board of Public Works: Governor's Reception Room, Second Floor, State House, Annapolis MD |url=http://bpw.maryland.gov/MeetingDocs/2015-Jan-7-Transcript.pdf |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151227162840/http://bpw.maryland.gov/MeetingDocs/2015-Jan-7-Transcript.pdf |archive-date=December 27, 2015 |access-date=March 15, 2019 |website=Bpw.maryland.gov}}</ref> Two editions of this artwork, by artist [[Benjamin Jancewicz]], were purchased from Galerie Myrtis by Peter Franchot and his wife Ann both as a gift for the Governor as well as to add to their own collection. The Governor's edition now hangs in his office.<ref>{{cite web |title=Peter Franchot – Timeline Photos – Facebook |url=https://www.facebook.com/peterfranchot/photos/a.193567594080634.34236.190343811069679/635526766551379/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160413101556/https://www.facebook.com/peterfranchot/photos/a.193567594080634.34236.190343811069679/635526766551379/ |archive-date=April 13, 2016 |access-date=March 17, 2015 |website=Facebook.com}}</ref>{{Primary source inline|date=March 2020}}
* In November 2015, the [[University of Maryland]] dedicated Frederick Douglass Plaza, an outdoor space where visitors can read quotes and see a bronze [[Frederick Douglass (Edwards)|statue of Douglass]].<ref>{{cite web |last=Brown |first=Crystal |date=November 18, 2015 |title=University of Maryland Dedicates Frederick Douglass Square to Honor Maryland's Native Son |url=https://www.umdrightnow.umd.edu/news/university-maryland-dedicates-frederick-douglass-square-honor-marylands-native-son |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180313214402/https://www.umdrightnow.umd.edu/news/university-maryland-dedicates-frederick-douglass-square-honor-marylands-native-son |archive-date=March 13, 2018 |access-date=March 13, 2018 |website=UMD Right Now |publisher=University of Maryland}}</ref>
* On October 18, 2016, the [[Council of the District of Columbia]] voted that the city's new name as a State is to be "Washington, D.C.", and that "D.C." is to stand for "Douglass Commonwealth."<ref>Tom Sherwood (2016), "Washington, Douglass Commonwealth, as 51st State?" ''NBC Washington'', 06:28&nbsp;pm EDT, October 18, 2016.</ref>
* On April 3, 2017, the [[United States Mint]] began issuing [[quarter (United States coin)|quarters]] with an image of Frederick Douglass on the [[Obverse and reverse|reverse]], with the [[Frederick Douglass National Historic Site]] in the background. The coin is part of the [[America the Beautiful Quarters]] series.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Weil |first=Martin |date=April 5, 2017 |title=Quarter Issued Honoring Frederick Douglass Site |newspaper=The Washington Post |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/quarter-issued-honoring-frederick-douglass-site/2017/04/05/866bb3dc-19bc-11e7-9887-1a5314b56a08_story.html |url-status=live |access-date=April 16, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181219170235/https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/quarter-issued-honoring-frederick-douglass-site/2017/04/05/866bb3dc-19bc-11e7-9887-1a5314b56a08_story.html |archive-date=December 19, 2018}}</ref>
* On May 20, 2018, Douglass was awarded an honorary law degree from the [[University of Rochester]]. The degree, which was accepted by Douglass's great-great-great-grandson, was the first posthumous honorary degree that the university had granted.<ref>{{Cite news |date=May 19, 2018 |title=NY College Giving Honorary Degree to Frederick Douglass |work=The New York Times |agency=Associated Press |url=https://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2018/05/19/us/ap-us-frederick-douglass-honorary-degree.html |url-status=live |access-date=May 23, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180523011436/https://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2018/05/19/us/ap-us-frederick-douglass-honorary-degree.html |archive-date=May 23, 2018}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last=Fisher |first=Janon |date=May 19, 2018 |title=Frederick Douglass to receive honorary degree from University of Rochester |url=http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/frederick-douglass-honorary-degree-upstate-college-article-1.3999101 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180523011452/http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/frederick-douglass-honorary-degree-upstate-college-article-1.3999101 |archive-date=May 23, 2018 |access-date=May 23, 2018 |website=Daily News |location=New York}}</ref>
* Douglass gave his last public lecture on February 1, 1895, at [[West Chester University]], 19 days before his death. Today, there is a statue of him on the university campus commemorating this event. The [[Frederick Douglass Institute]] has a West Chester University program for advancing multicultural studies across the curriculum and for deepening the intellectual heritage of Douglass.<ref>{{cite web |title=About the Frederick Douglass Institute |url=http://www.wcupa.edu/_ACADEMICS/Fdouglass/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131002142735/http://www.wcupa.edu/_ACADEMICS/Fdouglass/ |archive-date=October 2, 2013 |access-date=September 30, 2013 |publisher=Frederick Douglass Institute}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Frederick Douglass – West Chester University |url=https://www.wcupa.edu/_academics/Fdouglass/FrederickDouglass.aspx |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200130105105/https://www.wcupa.edu/_academics/Fdouglass/FrederickDouglass.aspx |archive-date=January 30, 2020 |access-date=February 6, 2020 |website=wcupa.edu}}</ref>
* In New York State there is the "Let's Have Tea" sculpture of Douglass and [[Susan B. Anthony]].<ref>{{Cite web |author=AaronNetsky |title=1872 Monument: Rochester, New York: A bronze ballot box stands at the spot where Susan B. Anthony voted illegally |url=https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/1872-monument |url-status=live |website=[[Atlas Obscura]] |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190517025604/https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/1872-monument |archive-date=May 17, 2019 |access-date=May 17, 2019}}</ref>
* On September 30, 2019, [[Newcastle University]] opened the 'Frederick Douglass Centre', a key teaching component for their School of Computing and Business School. Frederick Douglass stayed in [[Newcastle upon Tyne]] in 1846 on a street adjacent to the new university campus.<ref>{{cite web |title=The Frederick Douglass Centre {{!}} Our Vision |url=http://newcastlehelix.com/about/frederick-douglass-centre |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190930154921/https://newcastlehelix.com/about/frederick-douglass-centre |archive-date=September 30, 2019 |access-date=September 30, 2019 |website=Newcastle Helix}}</ref>
* A statue of Douglass located in Rochester, New York's [[Maplewood Park]] was vandalized and torn down over the weekend of July 4, 2020.<ref>{{cite news |date=July 5, 2020 |title=Frederick Douglass Statue Torn Down and Vandalized in Rochester, N.Y. |url=https://time.com/5863108/frederick-douglass-statue-torn-down/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200706205355/https://time.com/5863108/frederick-douglass-statue-torn-down/ |archive-date=July 6, 2020 |access-date=July 5, 2020 |publisher=Time}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |title=Frederick Douglass statue vandalized in Rochester park |url=https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/frederick-douglass-statue-vandalized-rochester-park-71622966 |url-status=live |access-date=July 6, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200706080327/https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/frederick-douglass-statue-vandalized-rochester-park-71622966 |archive-date=July 6, 2020}}</ref>
* In 2020, Douglas Park in Chicago, which was named for U.S. Senator [[Stephen A. Douglas]], was renamed [[Douglass Park]], in honor of Frederick and Anna Douglass. In the 1850s the senator had promoted "[[Popular sovereignty#1850s|popular sovereignty]]" as a middle position on the slavery issue and made "blatant assertions of white superiority."<ref>[[Michael Burlingame (historian)|Burlingame, Michael]], ''Abraham Lincoln: A Life'', vol. 1, p. 526, Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008; [https://www.knox.edu/documents/LincolnStudies/BurlingameVol1Chap13.pdf Unedited manuscript, p. 1446.] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210901131239/https://www.knox.edu/documents/LincolnStudies/BurlingameVol1Chap13.pdf |date=September 1, 2021 }}</ref> The name change was the result of a multi-year student-led campaign to rename the park.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Greene |first=Morgan |date=November 19, 2020 |title=After Years of Student Activism, Park District Officially Makes Name Change to Douglass Park |work=Chicago Tribune |url=https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/breaking/ct-douglass-park-chicago-renaming-20201118-lrt2n6h5i5gi7mmc7e4bd42g4a-story.html |url-status=live |access-date=November 19, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201118224105/https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/breaking/ct-douglass-park-chicago-renaming-20201118-lrt2n6h5i5gi7mmc7e4bd42g4a-story.html |archive-date=November 18, 2020}}</ref>
* A plaque on Gilmore Place in [[Edinburgh]], Scotland marks his stay there in 1846. In 2020 a mural of his image was added nearby.
* On June 19, 2021, on Boston Street in the Canton neighborhood of Baltimore, Maryland, two panels were unveiled at the spot where, as it had shortly before been discovered, Douglass had boarded the train that took him to his freedom from enslavement.<ref name="foxbaltimore.com" /><ref name="ReferenceA" /><ref name="baltimore.cbslocal.com" />
* On August 18, 2021, the Frederick Douglass Park in [[Lynn, Massachusetts]] was dedicated, directly across the street from the site of the [[Lynn station|Central Square railroad depot]] where Douglass was forcibly removed from the train in 1841. The park features a bronze [[Relief|bas-relief]] sculpture of Douglass.<ref name="Douglass_Park_Lynn">{{Cite news |last=Kuzub |first=Alena |date=August 18, 2021 |title=Frederick Douglass Park Dedicated |work=Lynn Daily Item |url=https://www.itemlive.com/2021/08/18/frederick-douglass-park-dedicated-in-lynn/ |url-status=live |access-date=August 20, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210820225642/https://www.itemlive.com/2021/08/18/frederick-douglass-park-dedicated-in-lynn/ |archive-date=August 20, 2021}}</ref>
* In 2020, the [[Greater Rochester International Airport]] was renamed the Frederick Douglass Greater Rochester International Airport.
* On January 18, 2023, Governor [[Wes Moore]] was sworn in as [[governor of Maryland]] on a Bible owned by Douglass.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Heim |first1=Joe |title=Wes Moore to be sworn in as Md. governor on Frederick Douglass's Bible |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2023/01/14/maryland-governor-moore-frederick-douglass/ |access-date=February 20, 2023 |newspaper=The Washington Post |date=January 14, 2023}}</ref>
* In October 2023, it was announced that a plaque commemorating one of Douglass' visits to Liverpool would be placed outside the [[Everyman Theatre, Liverpool|Everyman Theatre]] on [[Hope Street, Liverpool|Hope Street]].<ref>{{cite news |last1=Graham |first1=Patrick |title=Anti-slavery campaigner 'an inspiration for all communities' |url=https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/anti-slavery-campaigner-an-inspiration-27979041 |access-date=October 26, 2023 |work=Liverpool Echo |date=October 25, 2023 |language=en}}</ref> The theater was built on the original site of Hope Hall, a chapel where Douglass spoke on January 19, 1860.

==In popular culture==
{{more citations needed|section|date=December 2017}}
[[File:National Archives Comes Alive! Young Learners Program- Meet Frederick Douglass.webm|thumb|right|A 2021 instructional video from the [[National Archives and Records Administration]] for young learners starring Phil Darius Wallace, an actor who regularly portrays Douglass in performances and recitations]]

=== Film and television ===
* [[Robert Guillaume]] portrays Douglass during a speech about the [[Slavery in the United States|American slave trade]] in the 1985 miniseries ''[[North and South (miniseries)|North and South]]'' (Season 1, episode 3).<ref name="NYM 1985">{{cite journal| url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7McBAAAAMBAJ&q=Slavs%2C+Slaves%2C+Shoulders&pg=PA58|title=Slavs, Slaves, and Shoulders (Review: ''North and South'')| last=Leonard| first=John| date=November 4, 1985| journal=[[New York (magazine)|New York]]| pages=58–61| access-date=February 17, 2024}}</ref>
* ''[[Glory (1989 film)|Glory]]'' (1989) features Douglass, played by [[Raymond St. Jacques]], as a friend of Francis George Shaw.
* In [[Ken Burns]]' 1990 documentary ''[[The Civil War (miniseries)|The Civil War]]'', Douglass is voiced by actor [[Morgan Freeman]].
* The 2004 [[mockumentary]] film ''[[C.S.A.: The Confederate States of America]]'' features the figure of Douglass in an alternative history.
* In ''[[Akeelah and the Bee]]'' (2006), characters discuss Douglass near a bronze bust of him by sculptor [[Tina Allen]].<ref>{{Cite news |last=Rourke |first=Mary |date=September 12, 2008 |title=L.A. sculptor whose subject was African Americans |work=[[Los Angeles Times]] |url=http://articles.latimes.com/2008/sep/12/local/me-allen12 |url-status=live |access-date=January 29, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121015133000/http://articles.latimes.com/2008/sep/12/local/me-allen12 |archive-date=October 15, 2012}}</ref>
* The 2008 documentary film ''[[Frederick Douglass and the White Negro]]'' tells the story of Douglass in Ireland and the relationship between [[African Americans|African]] and Irish Americans during the [[American Civil War]].
* Douglass appears in ''[[Freedom (2014 film)|Freedom]]'', where he is portrayed by Byron Utley.<ref>{{cite web|title=Review: 'Freedom' Stars Cuba Gooding Jr. as a Slave Fleeing to Canada|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/05/movies/review-freedom-stars-cuba-gooding-jr-as-a-slave-fleeing-to-canada.html?_r=0|website=[[The New York Times]]|first=Andy|last=Webster|accessdate=February 17, 2024|date=June 4, 2015}}</ref>
* In the 2015 documentary film ''The Gettysburg Address'', the role of Frederick Douglass is voiced by actor [[Laurence Fishburne]].
* A [[The Good Lord Bird (miniseries)|miniseries]] based on [[James McBride (writer)|James McBride]]'s 2013 novel, ''[[The Good Lord Bird]]''<u>,</u> was released in 2020, with [[Daveed Diggs]] as Douglass.<ref>{{cite web |last=Sippell |first=Margeaux |date=August 2, 2019 |title=Daveed Diggs to Play Frederick Douglass in Ethan Hawke's Showtime Limited Series 'The Good Lord Bird' |url=https://www.thewrap.com/daveed-diggs-to-play-frederick-douglass-in-ethan-hawkes-showtime-limited-series-the-good-lord-bird/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191205062131/https://www.thewrap.com/daveed-diggs-to-play-frederick-douglass-in-ethan-hawkes-showtime-limited-series-the-good-lord-bird/ |archive-date=December 5, 2019 |access-date=December 3, 2019 |website=[[TheWrap]]}}</ref> Douglass is portrayed negatively.
* On February 23, 2022, HBO released a one-hour documentary titled ''Frederick Douglass: In Five Speeches,'' based on David W. Blight's [[Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom]].<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.hbo.com/movies/frederick-douglass-in-five-speeches |title=Frederick Douglass: In Five Speeches &#124; Official Website for the HBO Series |publisher=HBO.com |date= |access-date=August 26, 2022}}</ref>
* Douglass was portrayed by [[Elvis Nolasco]]  in the 2024 [[Apple TV+]] miniseries series ''[[Manhunt (miniseries)|Manhunt]]''.<ref name="Alexandra 2024">{{cite web |last=Alexandra |first=Rae |title='Manhunt' Review: Apple TV+ Series Is Gripping But Not All True |website=KQED |date=March 15, 2024 |url=https://www.kqed.org/arts/13954052/abraham-lincoln-assassination-plot-apple-tv-show-review-mary-simms |access-date=May 3, 2024}}</ref>

=== Literature ===
* The 1946 novel ''A Star Pointed North'' by [[Edmund Fuller]] presents an account of Douglass's life.<ref>Carson, Saul. November 3, 1946. "Negro's Apotheosis." ''[[The New York Times Book Review|New York Times Book Review]]''. pp. 7, 36.</ref>
* [[Terry Bisson]]'s ''[[Fire on the Mountain (1988 novel)|Fire on the Mountain]]'' (1988) is an [[alternate history|alternate-history]] novel in which [[John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry]] succeeded and, instead of the Civil War, the Black slaves emancipated themselves in a massive [[Slave rebellion|slave revolt]]. In this history, Frederick Douglass and [[Harriet Tubman]] are the revered founders of a Black state created in the [[Deep South]].
* Douglass is a major character in the novel ''[[How Few Remain]]'' (1997) by [[Harry Turtledove]], depicted in an [[alternate history]] in which the [[Confederate States of America|Confederacy]] won the [[American Civil War|Civil War]] and Douglass must continue his anti-slavery campaign into the 1880s.
* Douglass appears in ''[[Flashman and the Angel of the Lord]]'' (1994) by [[George MacDonald Fraser]].
* Douglass, his wife, and his alleged mistress, [[Ottilie Assing]], are the main characters in [[Jewell Parker Rhodes]]' ''Douglass' Women'' (New York: [[Atria Books]], 2002).
* Douglass is the protagonist of Richard Bradbury's novel ''Riversmeet'' (Muswell Press, 2007), a fictionalized account of Douglass's 1845 speaking tour of the [[British Isles]].<ref>Olende, Ken. December 1, 2007. "[http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=13625 Frederick Douglass and 'Riversmeet': connecting 19th century struggles] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080816102310/http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=13625 |date=August 16, 2008 }}." ''[[Socialist Worker]]''.</ref>
* Douglass's time in Ireland is fictionalized in [[Colum McCann]]'s ''[[TransAtlantic (novel)|TransAtlantic]]'' (2013).<ref>{{Cite news |last=Wagner |first=Erica |author-link=Erica Wagner |date=June 20, 2013 |title=Cross Over 'TransAtlantic,' by Colum McCann |work=[[The New York Times]] |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/23/books/review/transatlantic-by-colum-mccann.html |url-status=live |access-date=September 5, 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130627073150/http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/23/books/review/transatlantic-by-colum-mccann.html |archive-date=June 27, 2013}}</ref>
* A comedic representation of Douglass is made in [[James McBride (writer)|James McBride]]'s 2013 novel ''[[The Good Lord Bird]]''.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Lyons, Joel |date=August 21, 2013 |title=James McBride on 'The Good Lord Bird' |work=[[Daily News (New York)|Daily News]] |location=New York |url=http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/pageviews/2013/08/james-mcbride-on-the-good-lord-bird |url-status=live |access-date=September 5, 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130825031345/http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/pageviews/2013/08/james-mcbride-on-the-good-lord-bird |archive-date=August 25, 2013}}</ref>
* In 2019, author [[David W. Blight]] was awarded a [[Pulitzer Prize for History]] for ''[[Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom]]''.<ref>{{cite web | title=The Pulitzer Prizes | website=The Pulitzer Prizes |url=https://www.pulitzer.org/winners/david-w-blight  | access-date=May 13, 2022}}</ref>

===Painting===
* In 1938–39, African-American artist [[Jacob Lawrence]] created ''The Frederick Douglass'' series of narrative paintings. They were part of the historical series started by Lawrence in 1937, which included painted panels about prominent Black historical figures such as [[Toussaint Louverture]] and [[Harriet Tubman]]. During his preparatory work, Lawrence conducted research at the [[Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture]], drawing primarily from the autobiographies of Frederick Douglass: ''[[Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave]]'' (1845) and ''[[Life and Times of Frederick Douglass]]'' (1881).<ref>{{Cite book |last=Herkins Wheat |first=Ellen |title=Jacob Lawrence: The Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman Series of 1938–40 |date=1991 |publisher=University of Washington Press |page=20}}</ref> For this series the artist used a multipanel-plus-caption format that allowed him to develop a serial narrative that was not possible to convey by means of traditional portrait or [[history painting]].<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Dickerman |first1=Leah |author1-link=Leah Dickerman |title=Jacob Lawrence: The Migration Series |last2=Smithgall |first2=Elsa |date=2015 |publisher=The Museum of Modern Art |page=18}}</ref> Instead of reproducing Douglass's original narratives verbatim, Lawrence constructed his own visual and textual narrative in the form of 32 panels painted in [[tempera]] and accompanied with Lawrence's own captions. The structure of the painting series is linear and consists of three parts (the slave, the fugitive, the free man) which offer an epic chronicle of Douglass's transformation from slave to leader in the struggle for the liberation of black people.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Dickerman |first1=Leah |author1-link=Leah Dickerman |title=Jacob Lawrence: The Migration Series |last2=Smithgall |first2=Elsa |date=2015 |publisher=The Museum of Modern Art |page=20}}</ref> ''The Frederick Douglass'' series is currently in the [[Hampton University Museum]].

===Other media===
* Frederick Douglass appears as a Great Humanitarian in the 2008 strategy video game ''[[Civilization Revolution]]''.<ref>[http://www.civfanatics.com/civrev/great_people Civilization Revolution: Great People] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110317031836/http://www.civfanatics.com/civrev/great_people|date=March 17, 2011}} "CivFanatics" Retrieved September 3, 2009.</ref>
* In 2019, Douglass was the focus of the exhibition ''Lessons of the Hour – Frederick Douglass'' by British artist [[Isaac Julien]], at New York's [[Metro Pictures Gallery]] and [[Memorial Art Gallery]].<ref>{{cite web |last=Sayej |first=Nadja |date=March 15, 2019 |title=Isaac Julien on Frederick Douglass: 'It's an extraordinary story' |url=https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2019/mar/15/isaac-julien-frederick-douglass-lessons-of-the-hour |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190315081229/https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2019/mar/15/isaac-julien-frederick-douglass-lessons-of-the-hour |archive-date=March 15, 2019 |access-date=March 15, 2019 |website=The Guardian}}</ref>
* In August 2022, "American Prophet: Frederick Douglass in His Own Words," a musical starring [[Cornelius Smith Jr.]] as Douglass, was performed at [[Arena Stage]] in Washington, D.C.<ref name="Isherwood 2022">{{cite web |last=Isherwood |first=Charles |author-link=Charles Isherwood|title=Opinion – 'American Prophet' Review: Frederick Douglass's Fiery Words |website=WSJ |date=August 11, 2022 |url=https://www.wsj.com/articles/american-prophet-frederick-douglass-in-his-own-words-review-arena-stage-charles-randolph-wright-marcus-hummon-lorna-ventura-cornelius-smith-jr-kristolyn-lloyd-chris-roberts-thomas-adrian-simpson-joseph-joubert-11660255417 |access-date=October 29, 2022}}</ref>
* His life is retold in the 1948 two-part radio drama "The Making of a Man" and "The Key to Freedom", presented by ''[[Destination Freedom]]'', written by [[Richard Durham]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://archive.org/details/DestinationFreedom/DF_48-07-25_ep005-The_Making_of_a_Man.mp3|title=The Making of a Man|publisher=Destination Freedom|via=Internet Archive Digital Library|format=mp3}} & {{Cite web|url=https://archive.org/details/DestinationFreedom/DF_48-08-01_ep006-The_Key_to_Freedom.mp3 |title=The Key to Freedom|publisher=Destination Freedom|via=Internet Archive Digital Library|format=mp3}}</ref>
* [https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/ebony-magazine-1963-september-1942232046 A drawing of Frederick Douglass appears on the cover of ''Ebony'' magazine, September 1963]

==See also==
{{Portal|Biography|Maryland|Politics}}
* [[African-American literature]]
* [[African American founding fathers of the United States]]
* [[Civil rights movement (1865–1896)]]
* [[Four boxes of liberty]]
* [[History of African-American education]]
* [[List of African-American abolitionists]]
* [[List of civil rights leaders]]
* [[Slave narrative]]
{{Clear}}

== Explanatory notes ==
{{notelist}}

==References==
{{reflist|colwidth=30em}}

==Further reading==
=== Primary sources ===
* [[David W. Blight|Blight, David W.]], ed. (2022). ''Frederick Douglass: Speeches & Writings''. New York: [[Library of America]]. [https://www.loa.org/news-and-views/2122-frederick-douglass-prophet-of-freedom-with-david-w-blight Blight speaking about the book]
* Douglass, Frederick (1845). ''Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave''. Boston: Anti-Slavery Office.
* — (1855). ''[[iarchive:mybondagemyfreed1857doug|My Bondage and My Freedom: Part I. Life as a Slave, Part II. Life as a Freeman]]''. New York: Miller, Orton & Mulligan.
* — (1881). [https://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/douglasslife/douglass.html ''Life and Times of Frederick Douglass, Written by Himself'']. Hartford, Conn.: Park Publishing Co.
* — (1892). ''[[iarchive:lifetimesoffrededoug|Life and Times of Frederick Douglass, Written by Himself]]''. Boston: De Wolfe & Fiske Co. (updated edition of 1881 version).
* [[Philip Foner|Foner, Philip Sheldon]] (1945). ''[https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.b2847587;view=1up;seq=9 Frederick Douglass: Selections from His Writings]''. New York: [[International Publishers]].
* — (1950). ''The Life and Writings of Frederick Douglass''. New York: International Publishers.
* [[Henry Louis Gates Jr.|Gates, Henry Louis Jr.]], ed. (1994). ''Frederick Douglass: Autobiographies''. [[Library of America]].
* [[James Monroe Gregory|Gregory, James Monroe]] (1893). ''Frederick Douglass the Orator: Containing an Account of His Life; His Eminent Public Services; His Brilliant Career as Orator; Selections from His Speeches and Writings''. Willey Book Company.
* [[John Stauffer (professor)|Stauffer, John]], [[Zoe Todd|Zoe Trodd]], and Celeste-Marie Bernier (2015). ''Picturing Frederick Douglass: An Illustrated Biography of the Nineteenth Century's Most Photographed American'' (revised ed.). [[Liveright Publishing Corporation]].

=== Newspaper and magazine articles ===
* {{Cite news |date=January 15, 1881 |title=From Bondage to Power.—The Marshal who was a Slave |page=13 |work=[[The Leeds Mercury]] |location=[[Leeds, England]] |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/35477830/the-leeds-mercury/ |via=[[newspapers.com]]}}
*{{cite magazine |last=Gopnik |first=Adam |title=The Prophetic Pragmatism of Frederick Douglass |magazine=The New Yorker |date=October 8, 2018 |url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/10/15/the-prophetic-pragmatism-of-frederick-douglass |url-access=subscription |access-date=July 26, 2023 |ref=none}}

=== Scholarship ===
* [[Houston A. Baker Jr.|Baker, Houston A. Jr.]] (1986). "Introduction". ''Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass''. New York: [[Penguin Books|Penguin]].
* [[Jack Balkin|Balkin, Jack M.]] and [[Sanford Levinson|Levinson, Sanford]] (2023). [https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4413720 "Frederick Douglass as Constitutionalist"]. ''Maryland Law Review'', forthcoming.
* Barnes, L. Diane. ''Frederick Douglass: Reformer and Statesman'' (Routledge, 2012).
* Bennett, Nolan. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/24768038#:~:text=Whereas%20to%20narrate%20wrongs%20encouraged,that%20make%20not%20simply%20slaves "To Narrate and Denounce: Frederick Douglass and the Politics of Personal Narrative"] ''Political Theory'' 44.2 (2016): 240–264. 
* [[David W. Blight|Blight, David W.]] (2018). ''[[Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom]]''. New York: [[Simon & Schuster]].
* Blight, David W. (1989). ''Frederick Douglass' Civil War: Keeping Faith in Jubilee''. Baton Rouge, LA: [[Louisiana State University Press]].
* Bromell, Nick. ''The Powers of Dignity: The Black Political Philosophy of Frederick Douglass'' (Duke University Press, 2021).
* Buccola, Nicholas. ''The Political Thought of Frederick Douglass: In Pursuit of American Liberty'' (NYU Press, 2013). [https://books.google.com/books?id=HzYUCgAAQBAJ&dq=Douglass&pg=PP9 online]
* Chaffin, Tom (2014). ''Giant's Causeway: Frederick Douglass's Irish Odyssey and the Making of an American Visionary.'' Charlottesville, VA: [[University of Virginia Press]].
* Chesebrough, David B. ''Frederick Douglass: Oratory from Slavery'' (Greenwood, 1998).
* [[Lydia Maria Child|Child, Lydia Maria]] (1865). "Frederick Douglass" in {{cite book|url=http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/38479|title=The Freedmen's Book}} Boston: [[Ticknor and Fields]].
* Colaiaco, James A. (2015). ''Frederick Douglass and the Fourth of July''. New York: [[St Martin's Press]].
* Dilbeck, D. H. ''Frederick Douglass: America's Prophet'' (UNC Press Books, 2018) [https://books.google.com/books?id=BPdJDwAAQBAJ&dq=Douglass&pg=PP1 online]
* Douglas, Janet. "A Cherished Friendship: [[Julia Griffiths]] Crofts and Frederick Douglass." ''Slavery & Abolition'' 33.2 (2012): 265–274.
* Fee Jr., Frank E.『To No One More Indebted: Frederick Douglass and Julia Griffiths, 1849–63.』''Journalism History'' 37.1 (2011): 12–26. [https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/00947679.2011.12062840 online]
* [[Paul Finkelman|Finkelman, Paul]] (2016). [https://scholarship.law.missouri.edu/mlr/vol81/iss1/17/ "Frederick Douglass's Constitution: From Garrisonian Abolitionist to Lincoln Republican"]. ''Missouri Law Review'', vol. 81, no. 1, pp.&nbsp;1–73.
* Finkenbine, Roy E. (2000). "Douglass, Frederick". ''American National Biography''. {{doi|10.1093/anb/9780198606697.article.1500186}}. Brief scholarly biography.
* Foster, A. Kristen. "'We Are Men!' Frederick Douglass and the Fault Lines of Gendered Citizenship." ''Journal of the Civil War Era'' 1.2 (2011): 143–175. [https://www.researchgate.net/publication/239860160_We_Are_Men_Frederick_Douglass_and_the_Fault_Lines_of_Gendered_Citizenship]
* Golden, Timothy J. (2021). ''Frederick Douglass and the Philosophy of Religion: An Interpretation of Narrative, Art, and the Political''. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
* Gougeon, Len (2012). [https://direct.mit.edu/tneq/article-abstract/85/4/622/15882 "Militant Abolitionism: Douglass, Emerson, and the Rise of the Anti-Slave"]. ''New England Quarterly'', 85.4: 622–657. 
* Hamilton, Cynthia S. (2005). [https://www.americanantiquarian.org/proceedings/44539583.pdf "Models of Agency: Frederick Douglass and 'The Heroic Slave'"]. [[American Antiquarian Society]].
* Hawley, Michael C. (2022). [https://doi.org/10.1111/ajps.12737 "Light or Fire? Frederick Douglass and the Orator's Dilemma"]. ''American Journal of Political Science''.  
* Henderson, Rodger C. (December 1, 2006). "Native Americans and Frederick Douglass". Oxford African American Studies Center.
* [[Nathan Huggins|Huggins, Nathan Irvin]] (1980. ''Slave and Citizen: The Life of Frederick Douglass'' (''Library of American Biography''). Boston: [[Little, Brown and Company]].
* [[Isaac Julien|Julien, Isaac]] and Cora Gilroy-Ware, with Vladimir Seput, eds. (2021). ''Lessons of the Hour: Frederick Douglass''. New York: DelMonico Books. {{ISBN|9781636810393}}.
* Kilbride, Daniel. "What did Africa Mean to Frederick Douglass?". ''Slavery & Abolition'' 36.1 (2015): 40–62. [https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/0144039X.2014.916516?needAccess=true&role=button online]
* Lampe, Gregory P. (1998). ''Frederick Douglass: Freedom's Voice''. East Lansing, MI: [[Michigan State University Press]].
* Lee, Maurice S., ed. ''The Cambridge Companion to Frederick Douglass'' (2009), essays by experts, with emphasis on historiography.
* [[Robert S. Levine|Levine, Robert S.]] (1997). ''[[Martin Delany]], Frederick Douglass, and the Politics of Representative Identity''. Chapel Hill: [[University of North Carolina Press]].
* Levine, Robert S. (2016). ''The Lives of Frederick Douglass''. Cambridge, MA: [[Harvard University Press]].
* Levine, Robert S. (2021). ''The Failed Promise: Reconstruction, Frederick Douglass, and the Impeachment of Andrew Johnson''. New York: [[W. W. Norton & Company]].
* McClure, Kevin R. "Frederick Douglass' use of comparison in his Fourth of July oration: A textual criticism." ''Western Journal of Communication'' 64.4 (2000): 425–444. [https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Kevin-Mcclure-2/publication/254378006_Frederick_Douglass'_Use_of_Comparison_in_his_Fourth_of_July_Oration_A_Textual_Criticism/links/56d9c5dd08aee73df6cf6206/Frederick-Douglass-Use-of-Comparison-in-his-Fourth-of-July-Oration-A-Textual-Criticism.pdf online]
* McMillen, Sally Gregory (2008). ''Seneca Falls and the Origins of the Women's Rights Movement''. [[Oxford University Press]].
* [[Wolfgang Mieder|Mieder, Wolfgang]] (2001). ''"No Struggle, No Progress": Frederick Douglass and His Proverbial Rhetoric for Civil Rights''. Peter Lang Pub Incorporated.
* Mindich, David T. Z. "Understanding Frederick Douglass: Toward a New Synthesis Approach to the Birth of Modern American Journalism." ''Journalism History'' 26.1 (2000): 15–22. [https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/00947679.2000.12062536 online]
* Muller, John (2012). ''Frederick Douglass in Washington, D.C.: The Lion of Anacostia''. Charleston, S.C.: [[Arcadia Publishing|The History Press]]. {{ISBN|978-1-60949-577-0}}.
* [[James Oakes (historian)|Oakes, James]] (2007). ''The Radical and the Republican: Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, and the Triumph of Antislavery Politics''. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.
* [[Benjamin Arthur Quarles|Quarles, Benjamin]] (1948). ''Frederick Douglass''. Washington: Associated Publishers.
*  Ramsey, William M. "Frederick Douglass, Southerner." ''Southern Literary Journal'' 40.1 (2007): 19–38.
* Ray, Angela G. "Frederick Douglass on the Lyceum Circuit: Social Assimilation, Social Transformation?" ''Rhetoric & Public Affairs'' 5.4 (2002): 625–647. [https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/26/article/37997/summary summary]
* Rebeiro, Bradley. [https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4052783 "Frederick Douglass and the Original Originalists". ''Brigham Young University Law Review'', vol. 48 (2023)]
* Ritchie, Daniel. "'The stone in the sling': Frederick Douglass and Belfast abolitionism." ''American Nineteenth Century History'' 18.3 (2017): 245–272.
* {{Cite book |last=Root |first=Damon. |title=A Glorious Liberty: Frederick Douglass and the Fight for an Antislavery Constitution |publisher=[[Potomac Books]] Inc |year=2020 |isbn=978-1-64012-235-2}}
* {{cite encyclopedia |last=Sandefur |first=Timothy. |editor-first=Ronald |editor-last=Hamowy |editor-link=Ronald Hamowy |encyclopedia=The Encyclopedia of Libertarianism |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=yxNgXs3TkJYC  |year=2008 |publisher= [[SAGE Publishing|Sage]]; [[Cato Institute]] |location= Thousand Oaks, CA |doi= 10.4135/9781412965811.n80 |isbn= 978-1-4129-6580-4 |oclc=750831024| lccn = 2008009151 |pages=126–127 |chapter=Douglass, Frederick (1818–1895)|chapter-url=https://sk.sagepub.com/reference/libertarianism/n80.xml}}
* Selby, Gary S. "The limits of accommodation: Frederick Douglass and the Garrisonian abolitionists." ''Southern Journal of Communication'' 66.1 (2000): 52–66.
* [[John Stauffer (professor)|Stauffer, John]] (2009). ''Giants: The Parallel Lives of Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln''. Twelve, [[Hachette Book Group]].
* {{cite journal
|title=Frederick Douglass' Multiracial Abolitionism—Antagonistic Cooperation & Redeemable Ideals in the July 5 Speech
|first=Gregory
|last=Stephens
|year=1997
|journal=[[Communication Studies]]
|volume=48
|issue=3
|pages=175–194
|doi=10.1080/10510979709368500
|url=https://www.academia.edu/5015959}}
* Stephens, Gregory. [https://www.researchgate.net/publication/286544375_Arguing_with_a_Monument_Frederick_Douglass%27_Resolution_of_the_%27White_Man_Problem%27_in_his_%27Oration_in_Memory_of_Lincoln%27 "Arguing with a Monument: Frederick Douglass' Resolution of the 'White Man Problem' in his 'Oration in Memory of Lincoln'"] ''Comparative American Studies An International Journal'' 13.3 (2015): 129–145. [https://www.academia.edu/14925097/Arguing_with_a_monument_Frederick_Douglass_resolution_of_the_white_man_problem_in_his_Oration_in_Memory_of_Lincoln_ online]
* {{Cite encyclopedia |title=The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy |date=2017 |editor-last=Zalta |editor-first=Edward N. |ref=none |author-last=Sundstrom |author-first=Ronald. |chapter=Frederick Douglass |publisher=Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University |chapter-url=https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/frederick-douglass/}}
* Sweeney, Fionnghuala. ''Frederick Douglass and the Atlantic World'' (Liverpool University Press, 2007) [https://books.google.com/books?id=KImK-wpoYqQC&dq=Douglass&pg=PA1 online].
* Vogel, Todd, ed. (2001). ''The Black Press: New Literary and Historical Essays''. New Brunswick: [[Rutgers University Press]].
* [[Booker T. Washington|Washington, Booker T.]] (1906). ''Frederick Douglass''. London, UK: [[Hodder & Stoughton]]. [https://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/doug1906/doug1906.html/ Online] Historian [[John Hope Franklin]] wrote that Washington's biography of Douglass "has been attributed largely to Washington's friend, S. Laing Williams". Introduction to ''Three Negro Classics'', New York: Avon Books (1965), p.&nbsp;17.
* Webber, Thomas L. (1978). ''Deep Like the Rivers: Education in the Slave Quarter Community, 1831–1865''. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.
* Woodson, C. G. (1915). ''The Education of the Negro Prior to 1861: A History of the Education of the Colored People of the United States from the Beginning of Slavery to the Civil War''. New York: [[G. P. Putnam's Sons]].

=== Symposium ===
* The subject of the annual Thomas M. Jorde Symposium that was held on November 15, 2022, was "Frederick Douglass and the Two Constitutions, Proslavery and Antislavery". The speakers were [[David W. Blight]], [[Annette Gordon-Reed]], Christopher Tomlins, [[Martha S. Jones]], and [[James Oakes (historian)|James Oakes]]. [https://legalhistoryblog.blogspot.com/2024/05/frederick-douglass-and-two-constitutions.html Links to their papers are here] and [https://www.californialawreview.org/2022-jorde-symposium a recording of the symposium is available here].

===For young readers===
* [[David A. Adler|Adler, David A.]] 1993. ''A Picture Book of Frederick Douglass'', illustrated by S. Byrd. [[Holiday House]].
* [[Tonya Bolden|Bolden, Tonya]]. 2017. ''Facing Frederick: The Life of Frederick Douglass, a Monumental American Man''. [[Abrams Books]] for Young Readers.
* Miller, William. 1995. ''Frederick Douglass: The Last Day of Slavery'', illustrated by C. Lucas. [[Lee & Low Books]].
* [[Walter Dean Myers|Myers, Walter Dean]]. 2017. ''Frederick Douglass: The Lion Who Wrote History''. [[HarperCollins]].
* Walker, David F.; Smyth, Damon; Louise, Marissa. 2018. ''The Life of Frederick Douglass: A graphic narrative of a slave's journey from bondage to freedom''. [[Ten Speed Press]].
* Weidt, Maryann N. 2001. ''Voice of Freedom: A Story about Frederick Douglass'', illustrated by J. Reeves. [[Lerner publications]].

=== Documentary films and videos ===
{{external media| float = right| video1 = [https://www.c-span.org/video/?451151-1/frederick-douglass Presentation by David Blight on ''Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom'', October 1, 2018], [[C-SPAN]]}}
* [https://becomingfrederickdouglass.org/ ''Becoming Fredrick Douglass''] a co-production of [[Firelight Films]] and [[Maryland Public Television]] (released Oct 2022)
* [[Cornell University Press]]. January 27, 2012. "[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALXPUYWFbGI In the Words of Frederick Douglass]". ''YouTube''.
* Doherty, John J., dir. 2008. ''[[Frederick Douglass and the White Negro]]'', written by J. J. Doherty. Ireland: Camel Productions and [[Irish Film Board]].
* Haffner, Craig and Donna E. Lusitana, exec. prod. 1997. ''Frederick Douglass''. US: Greystone Communications, Inc. ([[A&E (TV network)|A&E Network]]).
* ''Frederick Douglass: When the Lion Wrote History''. US: ROJA Productions and [[WETA-TV]].
* ''Frederick Douglass, Abolitionist Editor''. Schlessinger Video Productions.
* [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0110934/ ''Race to Freedom: The Story of the Underground Railroad'']
* "Writings of Frederick Douglass." ''[[American Writers: A Journey Through History]]''. US: [[C-SPAN]]. May 28, 2001.
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=4&v=NBe5qbnkqoM&feature=emb_title Descendants of Frederick Douglass read his 4th July 1852 speech]

==External links==
{{Sister project links|Frederick Douglass|author=yes|wikt=no|v=no|b=no|n=no|voy=no|m=no|mw=no|species=no}}
* {{StandardEbooks|Standard Ebooks URL=https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/frederick-douglass}}
* {{Gutenberg author|id=34510|name=Frederick Douglass}}
* [https://transcription.si.edu/node/38 Celebrating Frederick Douglass through Transcription] Smithsonian Digital Volunteers: Transcription Center. Selected Douglass letters, speeches, and newspaper articles
* {{Internet Archive author |sname=Frederick Douglass}}
* {{Librivox author |id=4407}}
* [https://www.nga.gov/exhibitions/2019/frederick-douglass-walter-evans.html In the Library: Frederick Douglass Family Materials from the Walter O. Evans Collection] The [[National Gallery of Art]], Washington, D.C., April 22, 2019—June 14, 2019.
* [https://www.si.edu/exhibitions/one-life-frederick-douglass:event-exhib-6663 One Life: Frederick Douglass] Exhibition at the [[National Portrait Gallery (United States)|National Portrait Gallery]] in Washington, D.C., June 16, 2023 – April 21, 2024.<ref>DeNeen L. Brown, [https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2023/07/01/frederick-douglass-speech-smithsonian-national-portrait-gallery/ "The photos of Frederick Douglass that helped him fight to end slavery"], ''The Washington Post'', July 1, 2023.</ref><ref>[[Edward Rothstein]], [https://www.wsj.com/arts-culture/fine-art/one-life-frederick-douglass-review-portrait-taken-with-a-wide-angle-lens-45274723?mod=Searchresults_pos1&page=1 "'One Life: Frederick Douglass' Review: Portrait Taken With a Wide-Angle Lens"], ''The Wall Street Journal'', October 4, 2023.</ref>
* [https://npg.si.edu/exhibition/lessons-hour-isaac-julien Isaac Julien: Lessons of the Hour—Frederick Douglass] "Moving image installation ... across five screens" on view at the [[National Portrait Gallery (United States)|National Portrait Gallery]], December 8, 2023 - November 26, 2026. Review: [https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2024/01/17/frederick-douglass-isaac-julien/ Video artwork captures the sweep of Frederick Douglass’s oratory] ''The Washington Post'', January 17, 2024. On display at the [[Museum of Modern Art]], [https://www.moma.org/calendar/exhibitions/5685?sc_src=email_5914390&sc_lid=589583219&sc_uid=9uUtZI12wg&sc_llid=39809&sc_eh=9fb3374a6303ced71&utm_source=Emarsys&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=MSHIP_Engagement_Events_Julien+Previews_20240516_Active+excl.+AP&&mi_u=121789605&mi_ecmp=5914390 May 19 to September 28, 2024. "Across the 10 screens of this video installation, a nonlinear narrative melds Douglass's life and work with excerpts from several of his speeches, literary works, and personal correspondence".]

{{S-start}}
{{S-dip}}
{{s-bef|before = [[John E. W. Thompson]] }}
{{s-ttl|title  = [[United States Minister Resident to Haiti]] | years = 1889–1891 }}
{{s-aft|after  = [[John S. Durham (ambassador)|John S. Durham]] }}
{{S-ppo}}
{{s-break}}
{{s-new|party}}
{{s-ttl|title  = [[National Equal Rights Party|United States Equal Rights Party Vice-Presidential Nominee]] | years = 1872 }}
{{s-aft|after  = [[Marietta Stow]] (''National Equal Rights Party'') }}
{{S-end}}
{{Frederick Douglass|state=expanded}}
{{US Ambassador to Haiti}}
{{Slave narrative}}
{{American Civil War|Origins}}
{{Civil rights movement}}
{{United States presidential election, 1872}}
{{African American topics}}
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Douglass, Frederick}}
[[Category:Frederick Douglass| ]]
[[Category:1810s births]]
[[Category:1872 United States vice-presidential candidates]]
[[Category:1895 deaths]]
[[Category:19th-century African-American businesspeople]]
[[Category:19th-century African-American writers]]
[[Category:19th-century American businesspeople]]
[[Category:19th-century American diplomats]]
[[Category:19th-century American male writers]]
[[Category:19th-century American memoirists]]
[[Category:19th-century American newspaper editors]]
[[Category:19th-century American newspaper founders]]
[[Category:19th-century American newspaper publishers (people)]]
[[Category:19th-century American politicians]]
[[Category:19th-century American slaves]]
[[Category:19th-century Christians]]
[[Category:19th-century male writers]]
[[Category:Abolitionists from Maryland]]
[[Category:Abolitionists from New Bedford, Massachusetts]]
[[Category:Abolitionists from New York (state)]]
[[Category:Activists for African-American civil rights]]
[[Category:Activists from Rochester, New York]]
[[Category:Activists from Washington, D.C.]]
[[Category:African-American abolitionists]]
[[Category:African-American candidates for Vice President of the United States]]
[[Category:African-American Christians]]
[[Category:African-American diplomats]]
[[Category:African-American feminists]]
[[Category:African-American history of New York (state)]]
[[Category:African-American memoirists]]
[[Category:African-American non-fiction writers]]
[[Category:African-American politicians]]
[[Category:African-American publishers (people)]]
[[Category:African-American suffragists]]
[[Category:African-American temperance activists]]
[[Category:Ambassadors of the United States to Haiti]]
[[Category:American autobiographers]]
[[Category:American expatriates in the United Kingdom]]
[[Category:American feminists]]
[[Category:American lecturers]]
[[Category:American male journalists]]
[[Category:American saints]]
[[Category:American social reformers]]
[[Category:American suffragists]]
[[Category:Anglican saints]]
[[Category:American temperance activists]]
[[Category:Burials at Mount Hope Cemetery (Rochester)]]
[[Category:Candidates in the 1888 United States presidential election]]
[[Category:Deaths from coronary thrombosis]]
[[Category:District of Columbia Recorders of Deeds]]
[[Category:Douglass family|Frederick Douglass]]
[[Category:Fugitive American slaves that reached Canada]]
[[Category:History of Maryland]]
[[Category:Journalists from Maryland]]
[[Category:Journalists from Upstate New York]]
[[Category:Journalists from Washington, D.C.]]
[[Category:Literate American slaves]]
[[Category:American male feminists]]
[[Category:Maryland Republicans]]
[[Category:Members of the National Abolition Hall of Fame]]
[[Category:New York (state) Republicans]]
[[Category:People enslaved in Maryland]]
[[Category:People from Anacostia]]
[[Category:People from Rochester, New York]]
[[Category:People from Talbot County, Maryland]]
[[Category:People who wrote slave narratives]]
[[Category:Proponents of Christian feminism]]
[[Category:Underground Railroad people]]
[[Category:United States Marshals]]
[[Category:Washington, D.C., Republicans]]
[[Category:Writers from Baltimore]]
[[Category:Writers from Rochester, New York]]
[[Category:Writers from Washington, D.C.]]