THOUGHTLEADER PROFILE
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Frederick Douglass Published in The Concord Journal, January 2010 By Lauren Fleming Greatly admired by Concord activists in mid- to late-19 th Century, Frederick Douglass began life on a rather ordinary day in Maryland, the child of a slave, predestined to a life of oppression, anonymity and servitude. By the time he was a teenager he had been moved several times and served alternately as a land worker and a house servant. Through sporadic lessons and self teaching, Douglass became an avid reader, immersing himself in newspapers and human rights treatises as well has giving reading lessons to the other slaves. In 1838, after several failed attempts, Douglass successfully escaped from Maryland and traveled to New York. There, he became involved in the abolitionist community, attending meetings and subscribing to William Lloyd Garrison’s anti-slavery newspaper The Liberator. Douglass began to speak at meetings, and was encouraged to pursue a career as a lecturer. In 1845 he published the first edition of his autobiography Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave. His book became a best seller and was translated into several languages. Douglass continued to speak publicly and, fearing his autobiography would incite his former owner into reclaiming his “property,” i.e., Douglass himself, took his lecture tour abroad where he spoke in Ireland and England. Throughout the rest of his career Douglass would become an international authority on human rights and speak in countries around the world. Douglass’s ideas were new and radical but tempered with humility and always communicated with respect. Unlike many other thinkers of his time, Frederick Douglass saw freedom as a universal right to all people. While other advocates often isolated their philosophies to one group—abolitionists with no interest in extending women the vote, for example, or suffragettes content for immigrants to maintain their status as second-class citizens, Douglass’s view of equality reached out to all people, regardless of gender, race or age. But Frederick Douglass’s philosophy was not all compassion. His own perseverance through adversity made him unforgiving of weakness and a great supporter of what he called “the self made man,” that person who reached great heights without the help of birth, inheritance or social favoritism. In an 1859 speech he extolled the virtues of "WORK! WORK!! WORK!!! WORK!!!!" proclaiming, ”If (a man) cannot stand up, let him fall down." Expecting nothing of others that he did not expect of himself, his unwavering high standard, to this day, still proves a difficult one to meet. At the time of his death in 1895, Douglass had published four full books and delivered countless speeches. During the Civil War he helped to recruit for the Union army and to change its policy to allow slaves to fight too, if they chose to. He also assisted in the reconstruction of the post-war South. In fact, throughout his career, Douglass advised three Presidents—Lincoln, Johnson and Grant—and served as liaison to Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Viewed as a thoughtleader throughout his life, and even more so after his death, Frederick Douglass, a radical thinker in his time, left us with ideas that have reverberated throughout history, and shaped the philosophies of civil rights leaders and human rights activists right up to the present day. Lauren Fleming is a resident of Concord (Massachusetts), an intern with emerson consulting group inc. in Concord and a student at Fordham University, class of 2011. about emerson consulting group Ken Lizotte, Chief Imaginative Officer (CIO), 978-371-0442 Email Us |
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A Radical Tempered with Humility