Danny Glover
Danny Glover, January 2008
Born	Danny Lebern Glover (1946-07-22) July 22, 1946 (age 65) San Francisco, California, U.S.
Occupation	Actor, director, activist
Years active	1979–present
Height	6'3" now (Peak Height: 6'4")
Spouse	Asake Bomani (1975–99?; divorced; 1 child)

Danny Lebern Glover (born July 22, 1946) is an American actor, film director, and political activist.^[1] Glover is well known for his roles as Mr. Albert Johnson in The Color Purple, as Michael Harrigan in Predator 2, as corrupt cop James McFee in Witness, as Detective Roger Murtaugh in the Lethal Weapon film franchise, as Detective David Tapp in Saw as George Knox in Angels in the Outfield, and for his catch phrase "I'm too old for this shit." He has also appeared in many other movies, television shows, and theatrical productions. He is an active supporter of various humanitarian and political causes. He currently stars as Professor Arthur Teller in the Fox television series Touch.

Early life[link]

Glover was born in San Francisco, California, the son of Carrie (née Hunley) and James Glover. His parents, postal workers, were active in the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), working to advance equal rights.^[2] Glover's mother, daughter of a midwife, was born in Louisville, Georgia and graduated from Paine College in Augusta, Georgia.^[3] Glover grew up with a love for sports, like his father. Glover suffered from epilepsy in his teens and as a young adult. According to his own account, he "developed a way of concentrating so that seizures wouldn't happen." Using this technique, which he describes as "a type of self-hypnosis", Glover says he has not suffered a seizure since age 34.^{[citation needed]}

Career[link]

Glover at the 2005 Cannes Film Festival.

Glover originally worked in city administration working on community development^{[citation needed]} before transitioning to theater. On the transition, he said:

"I didn't think it was a difficult transition. Acting is a platform that can become a conveyer for ideas. Art is a way of understanding, of confronting issues and confronting your own feelings—all within that realm of the capacity it represents. It may have been a leap of faith for me, given not only my learning disability (dyslexia) but also the fact that I felt awkward. I felt all the things that someone that's 6'3" or 6'4" feels and with my own diminished expectations of who I could be [and] would feel. Whether it's art, acting or theater that I've devoted myself to I put more passion and more energy into it."^[4]

His first theater involvement was with Conservatory Theater, a regional training program in San Francisco^{[citation needed]}. Glover also trained with Jean Shelton at the Shelton Actors Lab in San Francisco. In an interview on Inside the Actor's Studio, Glover credited Jean Shelton for much of his development as an actor. Deciding that he wanted to be an actor, Glover resigned from his city administration job and soon began his career as a stage actor. Glover then moved to Los Angeles for more opportunities in acting, where he would later go on to co-found the Robey Theatre Company with actor Ben Guillory in honor of the actor, radical activist, and concert singer Paul Robeson in Los Angeles in 1994^{[citation needed]}.

Glover has had a variety of film, stage, and television roles, and is best known for playing Los Angeles police Sergeant Roger Murtaugh in the Lethal Weapon series of action films. During his career, he has made many cameo appearances. For example, he appeared in the Michael Jackson video Liberian Girl of 1987. He has also appeared as the husband to Whoopi Goldberg's character Celie in The Color Purple, and as Lieutenant James McFee in the film Witness. In 1994 he made his directorial debut with the Showtime channel short film Override. Also in 1994, Glover and actor Ben Guillory formed the Robey Theatre Company in Los Angeles, focusing on theatre by and about Black people.

Glover earned top billing for the first time in Predator 2, the sequel to the sci-fi action film Predator. That same year he starred in Charles Burnett's To Sleep with Anger, for which he won the Independent Spirit Award for Best Male Lead.

In common with Humphrey Bogart, Elliott Gould and Robert Mitchum, who have played Raymond Chandler's private eye detective Philip Marlowe, Glover played the role in the episode "Red Wind" of the Showtime network's 1995 series Fallen Angels.

In 1997, under his former production company banner Carrie Films, Glover executive produced numerous films of first time directors including Pamm Malveaux’s neo-noir short film Final Act starring Joe Morton which aired on the Independent Film Channel.

In addition, Glover has been a voice actor in many children's movies. Glover was featured in the popular 2001 film Royal Tenenbaums, also starring Gwyneth Paltrow, Anjelica Huston, Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson.

In 2004, he appeared in the low-budget horror film Saw as Detective David Tapp. In 2005, Glover and Joslyn Barnes announced plans to make No FEAR, a movie about Dr. Marsha Coleman-Adebayo's experience. Coleman-Adebayo won a 2000 jury trial against the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The jury found the EPA guilty of violating the civil rights of Coleman-Adebayo on the basis of race, sex, color and a hostile work environment, under the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Coleman-Adebayo was terminated shortly after she revealed the environmental and human disaster taking place in the Brits, South Africa, vanadium mines. Her experience inspired passage of the Notification and Federal Employee Anti-discrimination and Retaliation Act of 2002 (No FEAR Act).

In 2009, Glover performed in The People Speak a documentary feature film that uses dramatic and musical performances of the letters, diaries, and speeches of everyday Americans, based on historian Howard Zinn's "A People's History of the United States”.^[5]

Glover played President Wilson, the President of the United States in 2012, a disaster film directed by Roland Emmerich and released in theaters November 13, 2009.

In 2010, Glover participated in a Spanish film called "I Want to Be a Soldier".^[6][7]

Planned directorial debut[link]

Glover sought to make a film biography of Toussaint Louverture for his directorial debut. In May 2006, the film had included cast members Wesley Snipes, Angela Bassett, Don Cheadle, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Roger Guenveur Smith, Mos Def, Isaach De Bankolé, and Richard Bohringer. Production, estimated to cost $30 million, was planned to begin in South Africa, filming from late 2006 into early 2007.^[8] In May 2007, President of Venezuela Hugo Chávez contributed $18 million to fund the production of Toussaint for Glover, who is a prominent U.S. supporter of Chávez. The contribution annoyed some Venezuelan filmmakers, who said the money could have funded other homegrown films and that Glover's film was not even about Venezuela.^[9][10] The following June, some Venezuelan filmmakers petitioned for Glover to reconsider using the funds provided by their president while the actor was scouting locations outside the Venezuelan capital Caracas.^[11] The petition resulted in the local film guilds Anac and Caveprol being outlawed by Venezuela; the country's state-backed film institute Cnac was also instructed to sever ties with the guild.^[12] In April 2008, the Venezuelan National Assembly authorized an additional $9,840,505 for Glover's film, which is still in planning.^[13]

Personal life[link]

On September 2, 2009, Glover signed an open letter of objection to the inclusion of a series of films intended to showcase Tel Aviv at the Toronto International Film Festival.^[14]

On April 16, 2010, Glover was arrested in Maryland during a protest by SEIU workers for Sodexo's unfair and illegal treatment of workers.^[15] He was given a citation and later released. The Associated Press reports "Glover and others stepped past yellow police tape and were asked to step back three times at Sodexo headquarters. When they refused, Starks says officers arrested them."^[16]

Activism[link]

Glover speaks at a March for Immigrants Rights in Madison, Wisconsin, in 2007.

While attending San Francisco State University, Glover was a member of the Black Students Union which,^[17] along with the Third World Liberation Front and the American Federation of Teachers, collaborated in a five-month student-led strike to establish a Department of Black Studies. The strike was the longest student walkout in U.S. history.^[18] It helped create not only the first Department of Black Studies but also the first School of Ethnic Studies in the U.S.

Hari Dillon, current president of the Vanguard Public Foundation, was a fellow striker at SFSU. Glover now sits on Vanguard's advisory board. Glover is also a board member of The Algebra Project, The Black AIDS Institute, Walden House, and Cheryl Byron's Something Positive Dance Group. He was charged with disorderly conduct and unlawful assembly after being arrested outside the Sudanese Embassy in Washington during a protest over Sudan's humanitarian crisis in Darfur.^[19]

Glover's long history of union activism includes support for the United Farm Workers, UNITE HERE, and numerous service unions.^[20] In March 2010, Danny Glover supported 375 Union workers in Ohio by calling upon all actors at the 2010 Academy Awards to boycott Hugo Boss suits due to Hugo Boss announcement to close a manufacturing plant in Ohio after a proposed pay decrease from $13 to $8.30 an hour was rejected by the Workers United Union.^[21]

In January 2006, Harry Belafonte led a delegation of activists, including Glover and activist/professor Cornel West, in a meeting with President of Venezuela Hugo Chávez.

Glover was an early supporter of former North Carolina Senator John Edwards in the 2008 Democratic presidential primaries until Edwards' withdrawal,^[22] although some news reports indicated that he had endorsed Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich,^[23] whom he had endorsed in 2004.^[24] After Edwards dropped out, Glover then endorsed Barack Obama.^[25]

Glover was an outspoken critic of George W. Bush, calling him a known racist. "Yes, he's racist. We all knew that. As Texas's governor, Bush led a penitentiary system that executed more people than all the other U.S. states together. And most of the people who died were Afro-Americans or Hispanics."^[26]

Glover's support of California Proposition 7 (2008) led him to use his voice in an automated phone call to generate support for the measure before the election.^[27]

On April 6, 2009, Glover was given a chieftancy title in Imo State, Nigeria.^[28] Glover was given the title Enyioma of Nkwerre, which means A Good Friend in the language of the Igbo people of Eastern Nigeria.

Glover has become an active member of Board of Directors of The Jazz Foundation of America.^[29] Danny became involved with The Jazz Foundation in 2005, and has been a featured host for their annual benefit A Great Night in Harlem^[30] for several years, as well appearing as a celebrity MC at other events for the foundation. In 2006, Britain’s leading African theatre company Tiata Fahodzi appointed Danny Glover as one of its three Patrons, joining Chiwetel Ejiofor and Jocelyn Jee Esien opening the organization’s tenth anniversary celebrations (Sunday 2 February 2008) at Theatre Royal Stratford East, London.

Glover is also an active board member of the TransAfrica Forum.^[31]

On January 13, 2010, Glover compared the scale and devastation of the 2010 Haiti earthquake to the predicament other island nations may face as a result of the failed Copenhagen summit the previous year. Glover said "...the threat of what happens to Haiti is a threat that can happen anywhere in the Caribbean to these island nations... they're all in peril because of global warming... because of climate change... when we did what we did at the climate summit in Copenhagen, this is the response, this is what happens..."^[32] In the same statement, he called for a new form of international partnership with Haiti and other Caribbean nations and praised Venezuela, Brazil, and Cuba, for already accepting this partnership.

On November 1, 2011 Glover spoke to the crowd at Occupy Oakland on the day before the Oakland General Strike where thousands of protestors shut down the Port of Oakland.^[33]

Glover is a member of the Board of Directors of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, a think tank led by economist Dean Baker.

Activism against Iraq war and invasion[link]

Danny Glover has been an outspoken critic of the Iraq war before the war began in March 2003. In February 2003, he was one of the featured speakers at Justin Herman Plaza in San Francisco where other notable speakers included names such as author Alice Walker, singer Joan Baez, United Farm Workers co-founder Dolores Huerta and Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Oakland. Glover was a signatory to the April 2003 anti-war letter "To the Conscience of the World" that criticized the unilateral American invasion of Iraq that led to "massive loss of civilian life" and "devastation of one of the cultural patrimonies of humanity".^[34] During an anti-war demonstration in Downtown Oakland in March 2003, Danny Glover praised the community leaders for their anti-war efforts saying that "They're on the front lines because they are trying to make a better America... The world has come together and said 'no' to this war – and we must stand with them."

On Obama administration[link]

On the foreign policy of Obama administration, Glover said, "I think the Obama administration has followed the same playbook, to a large extent, almost verbatim, as the Bush administration. I don’t see anything different... On the domestic side, look here: What’s so clear is that this country from the outset is projecting the interests of wealth and property. Look at the bailout of Wall Street. Why not the bailout of Main Street? He may be just a different face, and that face may happen to be black, and if it were Hillary Clinton, it would happen to be a woman... But what choices do they have within the structure?".^[35]

Honors and awards[link]

In 2010, Glover delivered the Commencement Address and was awarded an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from Utah State University.^[36] He was also the recipient of a tribute paid by the Deauville American Film Festival in France on September 7, 2011. May 15th is officially National Danny Glover & Mel Gibson Day.

Credits in film, television and theatre[link]

Awards[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Danny Glover

• Danny Glover at the Internet Movie Database
• Danny Glover at the Internet Broadway Database
• Danny Glover at the TCM Movie Database
• Al Jazeera English's Riz Khan interview with Danny Glover on YouTube
• Screening Identities - Danny Glover in conversation with Manthia Diawara Walls and Bridges
• A free video excerpt of a lecture by Glover^{[dead link]}
• InnerVIEWS with Ernie Manouse: Danny Glover (TV Interview)
• The TransAfrica Forum
• Interview on Democracy Now! (audio)
• Danny Glover at Emmys.com
• "Danny Glover: The Fire Within". AARP Magazine. May & June 2004. http://www.aarpmagazine.org/people/Articles/a2004-03-17-mag-dglover.html. Retrieved 2009-12-01. 
• Interview in The Progressive^{[dead link]}
• mariannef (2007-04-04). "Africa On Fire! Interview with Danny Glover". KBOO. http://www.kboo.fm/node/3064. Retrieved 2009-12-01. 
• Danny Glover in the news supporting Mumia Abu-Jamal
• Danny Glover on Democracy Now! February 26 2007 discussing the Oscars and the Panafrican Film and Television Festival in Burkina Faso
• Danny Glover talks about Bamako on YouTube
• The ongoing effort to draft Danny Glover into the San Francisco Mayoral race
• Cheryl Byron and Something Positive
• Danny Glover Interview on The Hour with George Stroumboulopoulos
• At The End of Slavery, a film created by International Justice Mission and narrated by Danny Glover
• The People Speak at the Internet Movie Database
• http://articles.latimes.com/2009/dec/12/entertainment/la-et-people-speak12-2009dec12

Roger Murtaugh (born December 1937)^[1] is a fictional character and protagonist in the Lethal Weapon films, played in all four by Danny Glover.^[2]

[edit] Lethal Weapon

Murtaugh is a straitlaced veteran homicide detective sergeant and family man. He was a lieutenant of the 173rd Airborne Brigade in the US Army, and served in the Vietnam War. He joined the Los Angeles Police Department in 1967 ^[3] and is considering retirement - hence his catchphrase, "I'm too old for this shit". He is partnered with "loose cannon" and fellow Vietnam War veteran Martin Riggs (Mel Gibson) to investigate a suspected suicide of the daughter of one of Murtaugh's old friends.^[4][5] Though the two initially cannot stand each other and resent each other's presence, Murtaugh gains respect for Riggs when Riggs save his life. After Murtaugh discovers that his old friend from the Vietnam War, Michael Hunsaker, has been laundering the profits from a heroin-trafficking cartel, he confronts Hunsaker and learns the details of the organization before Mr. Joshua, the cartel's primary henchman, murders Hunsaker. The cartel kidnaps Murtaugh's older daughter, Rianne, in an attempt to make Murtaugh divulge what Hunsaker told him. Murtaugh and Riggs set an ambush, which fails. The cartel tortures Murtaugh, and threatens to torture Rianne as well, until Riggs rescues them. He manages to kill General McAllister, the head of the cartel, by shooting the driver of his car, causing a bus-versus-car crash and a gigantic explosion. He backs up Riggs as he fights and subdues Mr. Joshua, and then shoots Mr. Joshua when he attempts to shoot Riggs. By the end of the film, he has forgone retirement and accepted the loner Riggs into his family.

[edit] Lethal Weapon 2

Murtaugh is targeted by a South African drug cartel fronted by ruthless diplomat Arjen Rudd, who has Murtaugh and his wife assaulted in their own home. To assist Riggs' investigation of the South African consulate, Murtaugh portrays a man named Alphonse who wants to emigrate to South Africa to help overthrown apartheid (which was South Africa's political policy at the time). Following this, Murtaugh fights off two attackers in his home with a nail gun and rescues Federal witness Leo Getz (Joe Pesci) from the cartel. He helps Riggs track down and kill the other members of the cartel when it is revealed that the cartel murdered Riggs' wife. This includes an assault on a cargo ship which ends in the death of the remaining members of the cartel, including Rudd, whom Murtaugh kills after he shoots Riggs. Riggs shows his humorous side by pranking Murtaugh repeatedly.

[edit] Lethal Weapon 3

Murtaugh and Riggs mishandle a car bomb, which destroys a building. As puinishment, both are reduced in rank to patrolman, but regain their previous rank when they foil an armored car robbery and reveal a gun running cartel. While investigating this cartel, Murtaugh kills a fifteen-year-old boy to save Riggs' life; the boy is revealed to be a friend of Murtaugh's son Nick. Murtaugh is overcome by guilt and turns to isolation and alcohol until Riggs helps him forgive himself. Murtaugh helps Riggs and Internal Affairs officer Lorna Cole (Rene Russo) destroy the cartel. As a comical sidelight, Murtaugh also helps Riggs quit smoking by giving him dog biscuits instead; he does show some anger towards Riggs, however, when he believes that Riggs is becoming romantic with his daughter Rianne.

[edit] Lethal Weapon 4

Murtaugh and Riggs are both promoted to Captain, particularly because of all the past damage they have done in solving their cases, which caused the Police Department to lose their insurance carrier. They are promoted instead of demoted or fired because they are veteran officers. By becoming captains, it is assumed that they would cause less trouble, but are later returned to the rank of Sergeant after the events of the film. Murtaugh's oldest daughter Rianne is pregnant with his first grandchild and is secretly married to Police Sergeant Lee Butters, but she decides not to tell her father until after the baby is born. However, Riggs advises Murtaugh after Lorna tells him the secret. When Murtaugh accidentally kills the brother of a ruthless crime lord, Riggs and Murtaugh engage in brutal hand to hand combat with the crime lord. When Riggs nearly drowns, Murtaugh saves his life. In the end, Murtaugh accepts his daughter's marriage to Lee Butters and his baby granddaughter.

In popular culture[link]

Murtaugh's catchphrase "I'm too old for this shit" has become associated with Glover, who uses the catchphrase (and variations of it) in other roles as well, such as his cameo in Maverick and his guest spot on Psych. In the episode entitled "Murtaugh" of the sitcom How I Met Your Mother, Ted Mosby, portrayed by Josh Radnor, has a "Murtaugh List" of things for which Mosby has gotten too old to eat, do, and enjoy.^[6]

Reception[link]

This section requires expansion.

Critics have given the character a mixed reception.^{[7][8][9][10][11][12][13]} The Los Angeles Times described the character as being a sexless character from a sitcom.^[14]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Roger Murtaugh at the Internet Movie Database

Frederick Douglass
Douglass, circa 1874
Born	Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey c. February 1818[1] Talbot County, Maryland, United States
Died	February 20, 1895 (aged about 77) Washington, D.C., United States
Occupation	Abolitionist, author, editor, diplomat
Spouse	Anna Murray-Douglass (1838–1882) Helen Pitts (1884-1895) (his death)
Children	5
Parents	Harriet Bailey and perhaps Aaron Anthony[2]
Signature

Frederick Douglass (born Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey, c. February 1818^[3] – February 20, 1895) was an American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman. After escaping from slavery, he became a leader of the abolitionist movement, gaining note for his dazzling oratory^[4] and incisive antislavery writing. He stood as a living counter-example to slaveholders' arguments that slaves did not have the intellectual capacity to function as independent American citizens.^[5][6] Many Northerners also found it hard to believe that such a great orator had been a slave.^[7]

Douglass wrote several autobiographies, eloquently describing his experiences in slavery in his 1845 autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, which became influential in its support for abolition. He wrote two more autobiographies, with his last, Life and Times of Frederick Douglass, published in 1881 and covering events through and after the Civil War. After the Civil War, Douglass remained active in the United States' struggle to reach its potential as a "land of the free". Douglass actively supported women's suffrage. Without his approval he became the first African American nominated for Vice President of the United States as the running mate of Victoria Woodhull on the impracticable and small Equal Rights Party ticket. Douglass held multiple public offices.

Douglass was a firm believer in the equality of all people, whether black, female, Native American, or recent immigrant, famously quoted as saying, "I would unite with anybody to do right and with nobody to do wrong." ^[8]

Life as a slave[link]

Frederick Douglass as he appears at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C.

Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey, who later became known as Frederick Douglass, was born a slave in Talbot County, Maryland, between Hillsboro^[9] and Cordova, probably in his grandmother's shack east of Tappers Corner (38°53′04″N 75°57′29″W / 38.8845°N 75.958°W / 38.8845; -75.958) and west of Tuckahoe Creek.^[10] The exact date of Douglass' birth is unknown. He chose to celebrate it on Feb. 14.^[3] The exact year is also unknown (on the first page of Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, he stated: "I have no accurate knowledge of my age, never having seen any authentic record containing it.")^[9][11]

After this separation, he lived with his maternal grandmother, Betty Bailey. His mother died when Douglass was about 10. At age seven, Douglass was separated from his grandmother and moved to the Wye House plantation, where Aaron Anthony worked as overseer.^[13] When Anthony died, Douglass was given to Lucretia Auld, wife of Thomas Auld. She sent Douglass to serve Thomas' brother Hugh Auld in Baltimore.

When Douglass was about twelve years old, Hugh Auld's wife Sophia started teaching him the alphabet despite the fact that it was against the law to teach slaves to read. Douglass described her as a kind and tender-hearted woman, who treated Douglass like one human being ought to treat another. When Hugh Auld discovered her activity, he strongly disapproved, saying that if a slave learned to read, he would become dissatisfied with his condition and desire freedom. Douglass later referred to this statement as the "first decidedly antislavery lecture" he had ever heard.^[14] As told in his autobiography, Douglass succeeded in learning to read from white children in the neighborhood and by observing the writings of men with whom he worked. Mrs. Auld one day saw Douglass reading a newspaper; she ran over to him and snatched it from him, with a face that said education and slavery were incompatible with each other.

He continued, secretly, to teach himself how to read and write. Douglass is noted as saying that "knowledge is the pathway from slavery to freedom."^[15] As Douglass began to read newspapers, political materials, and books of every description, he was exposed to a new realm of thought that led him to question and condemn the institution of slavery. In later years, Douglass credited The Columbian Orator, which he discovered at about age twelve, with clarifying and defining his views on freedom and human rights.

When Douglass was hired out to William Freeland, he taught other slaves on the plantation to read the New Testament at a weekly Sunday school. As word spread, the interest among slaves in learning to read was so great that in any week, more than 40 slaves would attend lessons. For about six months, their study went relatively unnoticed. While Freeland was complacent about their activities, other plantation owners became incensed that their slaves were being educated. One Sunday they burst in on the gathering, armed with clubs and stones, to disperse the congregation permanently.

In 1833, Thomas Auld took Douglass back from Hugh after a dispute ("[A]s a means of punishing Hugh," Douglass wrote). Dissatisfied with Douglass, Thomas Auld sent him to work for Edward Covey, a poor farmer who had a reputation as a "slave-breaker." He whipped Douglass regularly. The sixteen-year-old Douglass was nearly broken psychologically by his ordeal under Covey, but he finally rebelled against the beatings and fought back. After losing a physical confrontation with Douglass, Covey never tried to beat him again.^[16]

From slavery to freedom[link]

Douglass first tried to escape from Freeland, who had hired him out from his owner Colonel Lloyd, but was unsuccessful. In 1836, he tried to escape from his new owner Covey, but failed again. In 1837, Douglass met and fell in love with Anna Murray, a free black woman in Baltimore about five years older than him. Her freedom strengthened his belief in the possibility of his own.^[17]

On September 3, 1838, Douglass successfully escaped by boarding a train to Havre de Grace, Maryland. He was dressed in a sailor's uniform, provided to him by Murray, who also gave him part of her savings to cover his travel costs, and carried identification papers which he had obtained from a free black seaman.^[17][18][19] He crossed the Susquehanna River by ferry at Havre de Grace, then continued by train to Wilmington, Delaware. From there he went by steamboat to "Quaker City" (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) and continued to the safe house of abolitionist David Ruggles in New York; the whole journey took less than 24 hours.^[20]

Frederick Douglass later wrote of his arrival in New York:

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.^[21]

Anna Murray-Douglass, Douglass' wife for 44 years

Once he had arrived, he sent for Murray to follow him to New York; she arrived with the necessary basics for them to set up home. They were married on September 15, 1838, by a black Presbyterian minister eleven days after his arrival in New York.^[17][20] At first, they adopted Johnson as their married name.^[17]

Abolitionist activities[link]

The home and meetinghouse of the Johnsons, where Douglass lived in New Bedford

The couple settled in New Bedford, Massachusetts. After meeting and staying with Nathan and Mary Johnson, they adopted Douglass as their married name.^[17] Douglass joined several organizations, including a black church, and regularly attended abolitionist meetings. He subscribed to William Lloyd Garrison's weekly journal The Liberator. In 1841 he first heard Garrison speak at a meeting of the Bristol Anti-Slavery Society. At one of these meetings, Douglass was unexpectedly invited to speak.

After he told his story, he was encouraged to become an anti-slavery lecturer. Douglass was inspired by Garrison and later stated that "no face and form ever impressed me with such sentiments [of the hatred of slavery] as did those of William Lloyd Garrison." Garrison was likewise impressed with Douglass and wrote of him in The Liberator. Several days later, Douglass delivered his first speech 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 rough life as a slave.

In 1843, Douglass participated in the American Anti-Slavery Society's Hundred Conventions project, a six-month tour of meeting halls throughout the Eastern and Midwestern United States. During this tour, he was frequently accosted, and at a lecture in Pendleton, Indiana, was chased and beaten by an angry mob before being rescued by a local Quaker family, the Hardys. His hand was broken in the attack; it healed improperly and bothered him for the rest of his life.^[22] A stone marker in Falls Park in the Pendleton Historic District commemorates this event.

Autobiography[link]

Frederick Douglass as a young man.

Douglass' best-known work is his first autobiography Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, 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 of its publication, it had been reprinted nine times with 11,000 copies circulating in the United States; it was also translated into French and Dutch and published in Europe.

Douglass published three versions of his autobiography during his lifetime (and revised the third of these), each time expanding on the previous one. The 1845 Narrative, which was his biggest seller, was followed by My Bondage and My Freedom in 1855. In 1881, after the Civil War, Douglass published Life and Times of Frederick Douglass, which he revised in 1892.

Travels to Ireland and Britain[link]

Mural featuring Frederick Douglass in Belfast, Northern Ireland.

Douglass' 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 on August 16, 1845, and arrived in Ireland as the Irish Potato Famine was beginning.

"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 parlour—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!'" – from My Bondage and My Freedom.

He also met and befriended the Irish nationalist Daniel O'Connell^[23] who was to prove to be a great inspiration.^[24]

Douglass spent two years in Ireland and Britain, where he gave many lectures in churches and chapels. His draw was such that some facilities were "crowded to suffocation"; an example was his hugely popular London Reception Speech, which Douglass delivered at Alexander Fletcher's Finsbury Chapel in May 1846. Douglass remarked that in England he was treated not "as a color, but as a man."^[25]

During this trip Douglass became legally free, as British supporters raised funds to purchase his freedom from his American owner Thomas Auld.^[25] British sympathizers led by Ellen Richardson of Newcastle upon Tyne collected the money needed.^[26] In 1846 Douglass met with Thomas Clarkson, one of the last living British abolitionists, who had persuaded Parliament to abolish slavery in Great Britain and its colonies.^[27] Many tried to encourage Douglass to remain in England to be truly free of the fear of chains, but with three million of his black brethren in bondage in the US, he left England in spring of 1847.^[25]

Return to the United States[link]

After returning to the US, Douglass produced some abolitionist newspapers: The North Star, Frederick Douglass Weekly, Frederick Douglass' Paper, Douglass' Monthly and New National Era. The motto of The North Star was "Right is of no Sex – Truth is of no Color – God is the Father of us all, and we are all brethren." The abolitionist newspapers were mainly funded by supporters in England, who had sent him five hundred pounds to use as he so chose.^[25]

In September 1848, Douglass published a letter addressed to his former master, Thomas Auld, berating him for his conduct, and enquiring after members of his family still held by Auld.^[28][29] In a graphic passage, Douglass asked Auld how he would feel if Douglass had come to take away his daughter Amanda as a slave, treating her the way he and members of his family had been treated by Auld.^[28][29]

Women's rights[link]

In 1848, Douglass was the only African American to attend the first women's rights convention, the Seneca Falls Convention.^[30][31] Elizabeth Cady Stanton asked the assembly to pass a resolution asking for women's suffrage.^[32] Many of those present opposed the idea, including influential Quakers James and Lucretia Mott.^[33] Douglass stood and spoke eloquently in favor; he said that he could not accept the right to vote as a black man if women could not also claim that right. He suggested that the world would be a better place if women were involved in the political sphere.

"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."^[33]

Douglass' powerful words rang true with enough attendees that the resolution passed.^[33][34]

Douglass refines his ideology[link]

In 1851, Douglass merged the North Star with Gerrit Smith's Liberty Party Paper to form Frederick Douglass' Paper, which was published until 1860. Douglass came to agree with Smith and Lysander Spooner that the United States Constitution was an anti-slavery document.

This reversed his earlier agreement with William Lloyd Garrison that it was pro-slavery. Garrison had publicly expressed his opinion by burning copies of the document. Further contributing to their growing separation, Garrison was worried that the North Star competed with his own National Anti-Slavery Standard and Marius Robinson's Anti-Slavery Bugle. Douglass' change of position on the Constitution was one of the most notable incidents of the division in the abolitionist movement after the publication of Spooner's book The Unconstitutionality of Slavery in 1846. This shift in opinion, and other political differences, created a rift between Douglass and Garrison. Douglass further angered Garrison by saying that the Constitution could and should be used as an instrument in the fight against slavery.

On July 5, 1852, Douglass delivered an address to the Ladies of the Rochester Anti-Slavery Sewing Society, which eventually became known as "What to the slave is the 4th of July?" It was a blistering attack on the hypocrisy of the United States in general and the Christian church in particular.^[35]

Frederick Douglass in 1856

Douglass believed that education was the key for African Americans to improve their lives. For this reason, he was an early advocate for desegregation of schools. In the 1850s, he was especially outspoken in New York. The facilities and instruction for African-American children were vastly inferior. Douglass criticized the situation and called for court action to open all schools to all children. He stated that inclusion within the educational system was a more pressing need for African Americans than political issues such as suffrage.

Douglass was acquainted with the radical abolitionist John Brown but disapproved of Brown's plan to start an armed slave rebellion in the South. Brown visited Douglass' home two months before he led the raid on the federal armory in Harpers Ferry. After the raid, Douglass fled for a time to Canada, fearing guilt by association and arrest as a co-conspirator. Douglass believed that the attack on federal property would enrage the American public. Douglass later shared a stage at a speaking engagement in Harpers Ferry with Andrew Hunter, the prosecutor who successfully convicted Brown.

In March 1860, Douglass' youngest daughter Annie died in Rochester, New York, while he was still in England. Douglass returned from England the following month. He took a route through Canada to avoid detection.

Civil War years[link]

Before the Civil War[link]

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.

Fight for emancipation and suffrage[link]

Douglass, circa 1860s

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. Douglass conferred with President Abraham Lincoln in 1863 on the treatment of black soldiers, and with President Andrew Johnson on the subject of black suffrage.

President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, which took effect on January 1, 1863, declared the freedom of all slaves in Confederate-held territory.^[36] (Slaves in Union-held areas and Northern states would become 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."^[37]

During the U.S. Presidential Election of 1864, Douglass supported John C. Frémont. Douglass was disappointed that President Lincoln did not publicly endorse suffrage for black freedmen. Douglass believed that since African American men were fighting in the American Civil War, they deserved the right to vote.^[38]

With the North no longer obliged to return slaves to their owners in the South, Douglass fought for equality for his people. He made plans with Lincoln to move the liberated slaves out of the South. During the war, Douglass helped the Union by serving as a recruiter for the 54th Massachusetts Regiment. His son Frederick Douglass Jr. also served as a recruiter and his other son, Lewis Douglass, fought for the 54th Massachusetts Regiment at the Battle of Fort Wagner.

Slavery everywhere in the United States was outlawed by the post-war (1865) ratification of the 13th Amendment. The 14th Amendment provided for citizenship and equal protection under the law. The 15th Amendment protected all citizens from being discriminated against in voting because of race. Douglass' support for the 15th Amendment, which failed to give women the vote, led to a temporary estrangement between him and the women's rights movement.^[39]

Lincoln's death[link]

Frederick Douglass

At the unveiling of the Emancipation Memorial in Washington's Lincoln Park, Douglass was the keynote speaker. In his speech, Douglass spoke frankly about Lincoln, noting what he perceived as both the positive and negative attributes of the late President. He called Lincoln "the white man's president" and cited his tardiness in joining the cause of emancipation. He noted that Lincoln initially opposed the expansion of slavery but did not support its elimination. 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 the first day of January 1863, when the world was to see if Abraham Lincoln would prove to be as good as his word?"^[40] At this speech 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...."

The crowd, roused by his speech, gave him a standing ovation. A long-told anecdote claims that the widow Mary Lincoln gave Lincoln's favorite walking stick to Douglass in appreciation. Lincoln's walking stick still rests in Douglass' house known as Cedar Hill.

In his last autobiography The Life & Times of Frederick Douglass, Douglass referred to Lincoln as America's "greatest President."

Reconstruction era[link]

Douglass' former residence in the U Street Corridor of Washington, D.C. He built 2000–2004 17th Street, N.W., in 1875.

After the Civil War, Douglass was appointed to several political positions. He served as president of the Reconstruction-era Freedman's Savings Bank; and as chargé d'affaires for the Dominican Republic. After two years, he resigned from his ambassadorship because of disagreements with U.S. government policy. In 1872, he moved to Washington, D.C., after his house on South Avenue in Rochester, New York burned down; arson was suspected. Also lost was a complete issue of The North Star.

In 1868, Douglass supported the presidential campaign of Ulysses S. Grant. President Grant signed into law the 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 and the Ku Klux Klan received a serious blow. Grant's vigor in disrupting the Klan made him unpopular among many whites, but Frederick Douglass praised him. An associate of Douglass wrote of Grant that African Americans "will ever cherish a grateful remembrance of his 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 Equal Rights Party ticket. He was nominated without his knowledge. During the campaign, he neither campaigned for the ticket nor acknowledged that he had been nominated.

Cedar Hill, Douglass' house in the Anacostia neighborhood of Washington, D.C., is preserved as a National Historic Site.

Douglass continued his speaking engagements. On the lecture circuit, he spoke at many colleges around the country during the Reconstruction era, including Bates College in Lewiston, Maine in 1873. He continued to emphasize the importance of voting rights and exercise of suffrage. In a speech delivered on November 15, 1867, Douglass said "A man's 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".^[41][42]

In 1877, Douglass visited Thomas Auld, who was by then on his deathbed, and the two men reconciled. Douglass had met with Auld's daughter, Amanda Auld Sears, some years prior; she had requested the meeting and had subsequently attended and cheered one of Douglass' speeches. Her father told her she had done well in reaching out to Douglass. The visit appears to have brought closure to Douglass, although he received some criticism for making it.^[28]

White insurgents had quickly arisen in the South after the war, organizing first as secret vigilante groups like the Ku Klux Klan. Through the years, armed insurgency took different forms, the last as powerful paramilitary groups such as the White League and the Red Shirts during the 1870s in the Deep South. They operated as "the military arm of the Democratic Party", turning out Republican officeholders and disrupting elections.^[43] Their power continued to grow in the South; more than 10 years after the end of 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 segregation and a concerted effort to disfranchise African Americans. From 1890–1908, Democrats passed new constitutions and statutes in the South that created requirements for voter registration and voting that effectively disfranchised most blacks and tens of thousands of poor whites.^[44] This disfranchisement and segregation were enforced for more than six decades into the 20th century.

Douglass' stump speech for 25 years after the end of the Civil War was to emphasize work to counter the racism that was then prevalent in unions.^[45]

Family life[link]

Douglass and Anna 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 Rossetta helped produce his newspapers. Anna Douglass remained a loyal supporter of her husband's public work, even though Douglass' relationships with Julia Griffiths and Ottilie Assing, two women he was professionally involved with, caused recurring speculation and scandals.^[46]

In 1877, Douglass bought 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 acres (61,000 m²). The home has been designated the Frederick Douglass National Historic Site.

Anna Murray-Douglass died in 1882, leaving him with a sense of great loss and depression for a time. He found new meaning from working with activist Ida B. Wells.

Frederick Douglass with his second wife Helen Pitts Douglass (sitting). The woman standing is her sister Eva Pitts.

In 1884, Douglass married again, to Helen Pitts, a white feminist from Honeoye, New York. Pitts was the daughter of Gideon Pitts, Jr., an abolitionist colleague and friend of Douglass. A graduate of Mount Holyoke College (then called Mount Holyoke Female Seminary), she worked on a radical feminist publication named Alpha while living in Washington, D.C. The couple faced a storm of controversy with their marriage, since Pitts was both white and nearly 20 years younger than Douglass. Her family stopped speaking to her; his family connection was bruised, as his children felt his marriage was a repudiation of their mother. But feminist Elizabeth Cady Stanton congratulated the couple.^[47] 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.^[48] The new couple traveled to England, France, Italy, Egypt and Greece from 1886 to 1887.

After Reconstruction[link]

As white Democrats regained power in the state legislatures of the South after Reconstruction, they began to impose new laws that disfranchised blacks and to create labor and criminal laws limiting their freedom. Many African Americans, called Exodusters, moved to large northern cities and to places like Kansas. In the latter case it was to form all-black towns where it was felt they could have a greater level of freedom and autonomy. Douglass spoke out against the movement, urging blacks to stick it out. He had become out of step with his audiences, who condemned and booed him for this position.^{[citation needed]}

In 1877, Douglass was appointed a United States Marshal. In 1881, he was appointed Recorder of Deeds for the District of Columbia.

In 1888, Douglass spoke at Claflin College, a black college in Orangeburg, South Carolina and the oldest such institution in the state.^[49] He urged his audiences to struggle and protest against slavery.

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.^[50][51][52]

He was appointed minister-resident and consul-general to the Republic of Haiti (1889–1891). In 1892 the Haitian government appointed Douglass as its commissioner to the Chicago World's Columbian Exposition. He spoke for Irish Home Rule and the efforts of leader Charles Stewart Parnell in Ireland. He briefly revisited Ireland in 1886.

Also in 1892, Douglass constructed rental housing for blacks, now known as Douglass Place, in the Fells Point area of Baltimore. The complex was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2003.^[53][54]

Death[link]

Gravestone of Frederick Douglass located in Mount Hope Cemetery, Rochester, New York

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 given a standing ovation by the audience. Shortly after he returned home, Frederick Douglass died of a massive heart attack or stroke in Washington, D.C. His funeral was held at the Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church where thousands passed by his coffin paying tribute. He was buried in Mount Hope Cemetery in Rochester, New York.

Legacy and honors[link]

Poster from Office of War Information. Domestic Operations Branch. News Bureau, 1943

• In 1921, members of the Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity (the first African-American intercollegiate fraternity) designated Frederick Douglass as an honorary member. And so Douglass is the only man to receive an honorary membership posthumously.^[55]

• The Frederick Douglass Memorial Bridge, sometimes referred to as the South Capitol Street Bridge, just south of the US Capitol in Washington DC, was built in 1950 and named in his honor.

• In 1962, his home in Anacostia (Washington, DC) became part of the National Park System,^[56] and in 1988 was designated the Frederick Douglass National Historic Site.

• In 1965, the U.S. 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.^[57]

• 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.

• Douglass is honored with a feast day on the liturgical calendar of the Episcopal Church (USA) on February 20.

• In 2007, the former Troup–Howell bridge which carried Interstate 490 over the Genesee River was redesigned and renamed the Frederick Douglass – Susan B. Anthony Memorial Bridge.

• In 2010, a statue (by Gabriel Koren) and memorial (designed by Algernon Miller) of Douglass^[58] were unveiled at Frederick Douglass Circle at the northwest corner of Central Park in New York City.^[59]

• On June 12, 2011, Talbot County, Maryland, honored Douglass by installing a seven-foot bronze statue of Douglass on the lawn of the county courthouse in Easton, Maryland.^[60]

• Many public schools have been named in his honor.

Works[link]

1965 US Postage Stamp, published during the upsurge of the Civil Rights Movement

Writings[link]

• A Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave (1845)
• "The Heroic Slave". Autographs for Freedom. Ed. Julia Griffiths, Boston: Jewett and Company, 1853. pp. 174–239.
• My Bondage and My Freedom (1855)
• Life and Times of Frederick Douglass (1881, revised 1892)
• Douglass founded and edited the abolitionist newspaper The North Star from 1847 to 1851. He merged The North Star with another paper to create the Frederick Douglass' Paper.
• In the Words of Frederick Douglass: Quotations from Liberty's Champion. Edited by John R. McKivigan and Heather L. Kaufman. Ithaca & London: Cornell University Press, 2012. ISBN 978-0-8014-4790-7

Speeches[link]

• "The Church and Prejudice"
• Self-Made Men
• "Speech at National Hall, Philadelphia July 6, 1863 for the Promotion of Colored Enlistments"^[61]
• "What to a slave is the 4th of July?"^[62]

Cultural representation[link]

• The 1989 film Glory featured Frederick Douglass as a friend of Francis George Shaw. He was played by Raymond St. Jacques.
• Douglass is the protagonist of the novel Riversmeet (Richard Bradbury, Muswell Press, 2007), a fictionalized account of his 1845 speaking tour of the British Isles.^[63]
• The 2004 mockumentary film, an alternative history called C.S.A.: The Confederate States of America, featured the figure of Douglass.
• The 2008 documentary film called Frederick Douglass and the White Negro tells the story of Frederick Douglass in Ireland and the relationship between African Americans and Irish Americans during the American Civil War.
• Frederick Douglass is a major character in the alternate history novel How Few Remain by Harry Turtledove.
• Frederick Douglass appears in Flashman and the Angel of the Lord,by George MacDonald Fraser.
• Frederick Douglass appears as a Great Humanitarian in the 2008 strategy video game Civilization Revolution.^[64]
• Douglass, his wife, and his mistress, Ottilie Assing, are the main characters in Jewell Parker Rhodes' Douglass' Women, a novel (New York: Atria Books, 2002).

See also[link]

	Biography portal
	Maryland portal

• African-American literature
• Frederick Douglass and the White Negro
• List of African-American abolitionists
• Slave narrative
• The Columbian Orator
• U.S. Constitution, defender of the Constitution

References[link]

Further reading[link]

Scholarship

• Gates, Jr., Henry Louis, ed. Frederick Douglass, Autobiography (Library of America, 1994) ISBN 978-0-940450-79-0
• Foner, Philip Sheldon. The Life and Writings of Frederick Douglass. New York: International Publishers, 1950.
• Houston A. Baker, Jr., Introduction, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Penguin, 1986 edition.
• Huggins, Nathan Irvin, and Oscar Handlin. Slave and Citizen: The Life of Frederick Douglass. Library of American Biography. Boston: Little, Brown, 1980; Longman (1997). ISBN 0-673-39342-9
• Lampe, Gregory P. Frederick Douglass: Freedom's Voice. Rhetoric and Public Affairs Series. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1998. ISBN-X (alk. paper) ISBN (pbk. alk. paper) (on his oratory)
• Levine, Robert S. Martin Delany, Frederick Douglass, and the Politics of Representative Identity. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997. ISBN (alk. paper). ISBN (pbk.: alk. paper) (cultural history)
• McFeely, William S. Frederick Douglass. New York: Norton, 1991. ISBN 0-393-31376-X
• McMillen, Sally Gregory. Seneca Falls and the origins of the women's rights movement. Oxford University Press, 2008. ISBN 0-19-518265-0
• Oakes, James. The Radical and the Republican: Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, and the Triumph of Antislavery Politics. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc. 2007. ISBN 0-393-06194-9
• Quarles, Benjamin. Frederick Douglass. Washington: Associated Publishers, 1948.
• Stanton, Elizabeth Cady; edited by Theodore Stanton and Harriot Stanton Blatch. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, As Revealed in Her Letters, Diary and Reminiscences, Harper & Brothers, 1922.
• Webber, Thomas, Deep Like Rivers: Education in the Slave Quarter Community 1831–1865. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc. (1978).
• Woodson, C.G., 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, (1915); Indy Publ. (2005) ISBN 1-4219-2670-9

For young readers

• Miller, William. Frederick Douglass: The Last Day of Slavery. Illus. by Cedric Lucas. Lee & Low Books, 1995. ISBN 1-880000-42-3
• Weidt, Maryann N. Voice of Freedom: a Story about Frederick Douglass. Illus. by Jeni Reeves. Lerner Publications, (2001). ISBN 1-57505-553-8

Documentary films

• Frederick Douglass and the White Negro [videorecording] / Writer/Director John J Doherty, produced by Camel Productions, Ireland. Irish Film Board/TG4/BCI.; 2008
• Frederick Douglass [videorecording] / produced by Greystone Communications, Inc. for A&E Network ; executive producers, Craig Haffner and Donna E. Lusitana.; 1997
• Frederick Douglass: When the Lion Wrote History [videorecording] / a co-production of ROJA Productions and WETA-TV.
• Frederick Douglass, Abolitionist Editor [videorecording]/a production of Schlessinger Video Productions.
• Race to Freedom [videorecording] : the story of the underground railroad / an Atlantis

External links[link]

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