Frederick Douglas
The Baltimore Sun did an article on Fredrick Douglas earlier this year calling him the multiracial trailblazer. That he was. He believed his father was his white slave owner. Douglas and his mother were separated when he was young and he experienced significant physical abuse by his owners. Fredrick Douglas is considered the most important African American of the nineteenth century. He was taught to read by his slave owner’s mistress. He managed to escape from slavery in Maryland. He was well known as a slave who gained freedom, an abolitionist, an advocate for women’s rights, and a gifted orator. He spoke across the nation often to large crowd’s telling his own story and condemning slavery. After his first wife passed away he married Helen Pitts, a white women who was a feminist and abolitionist. Their interracial marriage created lots of controversy. We have seen a growth of interracial marriages, but this unfortunately can still be true today. Frederick Douglas stated in 1881 “Though slavery was abolished, the wrongs of my people were not ended. Though they were not slaves, they were not quite free.” This year we celebrated his 200th birthday and the same could still be said today.
Makensie Shay McDaniel
Project RACE Teen President.
Picture Credit: madametussauds.com