Frederick Douglass A Man and His Vision This week at LiveAuctionTalk.com

June 20, 2011 - PRLog -- Frederick Douglass was one of the most charismatic speakers in the 19th century anti-slavery movement.  He was so good at moving audiences from anger to laughter to tears people didn’t believe he had actually been a slave.  White abolitionists asked him to use more “plantation language” in his speeches so that people would believe him.

No.  He said he wouldn’t play any roles.

With no formal education, the ability to read was Frederick’s path to freedom and he learned to read by the time he was 13-years-old.  Then he challenged his schoolboy friends to help him learn to write by chalking letters on sidewalks and fences.  

Frederick’s way of convincing people he too experienced the hardships and humiliations of slavery was to finish his first autobiography in 1845, “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass.”

When Lincoln was assassinated on April 14, 1865 Frederick joined mourners.

“Dying as he did die, by the red hand of violence, killed, assassinated, taken off without warning, not because of personal hate---for no man who knew Abraham Lincoln could hate him,” he said.

On March 10, Swann Galleries, New York, featured a selection of Frederick Douglass artifacts in its Printed & Manuscript African Americana sale.

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