The Heroic Slave

By Frederick Douglass

With the possible exception of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., no African American has been more instrumental in the fight for minorities’ civil rights in the United States than Frederick Douglass 1818–1895), an American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman. His list of accomplishments would be impressive enough even without taking into account the fact that he was born into slavery.


After escaping from slavery, Douglass became a leader of the abolitionist movement, gaining note for his dazzling oratory and antislavery writing. He stood out as the living embodiment of an intellectual former slave, the antithesis of slaveholders’ arguments that blacks were an inferior race. Douglass remained active in the fight for civil rights and abolition throughout the Civil War and Reconstruction, urging Lincoln to let black men enlist in the Union. As Douglass constantly stated, nobody had more to fight for in the Civil War than black men.


Douglass continued his advocacy all the way until his death in 1895. Douglass was a firm believer in the equality of all people, advocating on behalf of blacks, women, immigrants and even Native Americans. Douglass famously said, "I would unite with anybody to do right and with nobody to do wrong."


Of all his speeches and writings, his most famous are his autobiographies. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Krill Press
• Release date: Dec 17, 2015
• ISBN: 9781518338700

Frederick Douglass

Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey (Frederick Douglass) was born a slave in Talbot County, Maryland. He took the name Douglass after escaping from the South in 1838. As a leader in the abolitionist movement, Douglass was famed for his eloquent yet incisive political writing. And, like his near-contemporary, Booker T. Washington, understood the central importance of education in improving the lives of African Americans, and was therefore an early proponent of desegregation. A firm believer in equal rights for all, Douglass attended a meeting of the National Council of Women in Washington, D.C., in the hours before his death in February 1895.

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THE HEROIC SLAVE

..................

Frederick Douglass

FIREWORK PRESS

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Copyright © 2015 by Frederick Douglass

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

THE HEROIC SLAVE.

PART I.

PART II.

PART III.

PART IV.

The Heroic Slave

By

Frederick Douglass

The Heroic Slave

Published by Firework Press

New York City, NY

First published circa 1895

Copyright © Firework Press, 2015

All rights reserved

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INTRODUCTION

..................

WITH THE POSSIBLE EXCEPTION OF Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., no African American has been more instrumental in the fight for minorities’ civil rights in the United States than Frederick Douglass 1818–1895), an American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman. His list of accomplishments would be impressive enough even without taking into account the fact that he was born into slavery.

Douglass originally stated that he was told his father was a white man, perhaps his master Aaron Anthony. When Douglass was about 12, his slaveowner’s wife Sophia Auld began teaching him the alphabet in defiance of the South’s laws against teaching slaves how to read. When her husband Hugh found out, he was furious, reminding her that if the slave learned to read, he would become dissatisfied with his condition and desire freedom. His words would prove prophetic.

Douglass is noted as saying that knowledge is the pathway from slavery to freedom, and he took that advice to heart, teaching himself how to read and write with his knowledge of the alphabet. On September 3, 1838, Douglass successfully escaped slavery by traveling by boat to Delaware, Philadelphia, and finally New York, all in the span of a day. Douglass found a new world had opened upon me.

After escaping from slavery, Douglass became a leader of the abolitionist movement, gaining note for his dazzling oratory and antislavery writing. He stood out as the living embodiment of an intellectual former slave, the antithesis of slaveholders’ arguments that blacks were an inferior race. Douglass remained active in the fight for civil rights and abolition throughout the Civil War and Reconstruction, urging Lincoln to let black men enlist in the Union. As Douglass constantly stated, nobody had more to fight for in the Civil War than black men.

Douglass continued his advocacy all the way until his death in 1895. Douglass was a firm believer in the equality of all people, advocating on behalf of blacks, women, immigrants and even Native Americans. Douglass famously said, I would unite with anybody to do right and with nobody to do wrong.

THE HEROIC SLAVE.

..................

PART I.

..................

Oh! child of grief, why weepest thou?

     Why droops thy sad and mournful brow?

Why is thy look so like despair ?

     What deep, sad sorrow lingers there?

   The State of Virginia is famous in American annals for the multitudinous array of her statesmen and heroes. She has been dignified by some the mother of statesmen. History has not been sparing in recording their names, or in blazoning their deeds. Her high position in this respect, has given her an enviable distinction among her sister States. With Virginia for his birth-place, even a man of ordinary parts, on account of the general partiality for her sons, easily rises to eminent stations. Men, not great enough to attract special attention in their native States, have, like a certain distinguished citizen in the State of New York, sighed and repined that they were not born in Virginia. Yet not all the great ones of the Old Dominion have, by the fact of their birth-place, escaped undeserved obscurity. By some strange neglect, one of the truest, manliest, and bravest of her children, — one who, in after years, will, I think, command the pen of genius to set his merits forth, holds now no higher place in the records of that grand old Commonwealth than is held by a horse or an ox. Let those account for it who can, but there stands the fact, that a man who loved liberty as well as did Patrick Henry, — who deserved it as much as Thomas Jefferson, — and