1. Frederick Douglass & The Abolitionists

2. Frederick Douglass Reading Schedule
Chaps intro-6: 9/12
Chaps 7-10: 9/19
Chaps 11-App: 9/24
Assessment: We will complete three Close Reads of excerpts, one of which will culminate in an individual rhetorical analysis essay and you will take a MC Reading Comp exam.

3. Context: Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave
born into slavery in Maryland as Frederick Bailey circa 1818
a slave on farms on the Eastern Shore of Maryland and in Baltimore throughout his youth
first learned how to read and began making contacts with educated free blacks
eventually escaped north to New York at the age of about twenty
reunited with and married his fiancée, a free black woman from Baltimore named Anna Murray
the two settled further north in New Bedford, Massachusetts
changed his last name to Douglass.
Douglass worked for the next three years as a laborer and continued his self‑education
he began reading the Liberator, the abolitionist newspaper edited by William Lloyd Garrison
In 1841, Douglass attended an abolitionist meeting where he met Garrison
Douglass told the crowd about his experiences of slavery
Garrison offered to employ him as an abolitionist speaker for the American Anti‑Slavery Society.
From 1841 to 1845, he traveled the Northern states, speaking on slavery’s injustice and brutality
encountered hostile opposition and, most often, the charge that he was lying
Many did not believe that such an eloquent and intelligent Negro had so recently been a slave
1845-writes his autobiography

4. Text Choices

5. William Lloyd Garrison
Garrison was a prominent abolitionist who worked with Douglass to end slavery
Garrison created the abolitionist newspaper, The Liberator-1 January 1831
1st editorial
Defends his staunch opposition to slavery and his use of strong language to support the cause

6. Frederick Douglass William Lloyd Garrison died May 24, 1879
Chronic kidney disease
Speech given at the Garrison Memorial Meeting on June 2, 1879
Douglass memorializes Garrison by discussing his dedication to the abolitionist movement and all that he sacrificed for it.

7. Angelina Grimke Prominent female abolitionist
spoke to the members of the Massachusetts Legislature in February 1838
the first woman in U.S. history to address the members of an American legislative body
Her subject was the demand for the immediate end of the slave trade in Washington, D.C.

8. John Brown
Advocated for the end of slavery by any means necessary including a violent slave uprising
seized the federal arsenal at Harper's Ferry in October, 1859, for the purpose of arming slaves for an insurrection.
Speech given November 2, 1859 during his trial
He was executed December 2, 1859

9. David Walker born free in 1796 in North Carolina, and moved to Boston
Wrote a 26 page pamphlet warning of a bloody insurrection if slaveholders did not liberate slaves
December, 1828 he delivered an address before the Massachusetts General Colored Association, an organization founded two years earlier in Boston to oppose slavery and discrimination against free blacks
The speech, which called for organization and united action among African Americans

10. Harriet Beecher Stowe
Best known for writing Uncle Tom’s Cabin in 1853, an abolitionist novel
Met with Douglass and was convinced of his convictions
Letter to William lloyd Garrison
Hoped to help reconcile the rift that had grown between Garrison and Douglass

11. T. Thomas Fortune Born as a slave in Florida in 1856
Became a newspaper owner and publisher in NY
Speech given April 20, before the Brooklyn, New York Literary Union
argues that class conflict rather than racial strife was at the center of the struggles of African Americans in post-Civil War era

12. Frances Harper free-born native of Baltimore, Maryland
gave her first anti-slavery lecture in New Bedford, Massachusetts in 1854
books of poetry enhanced her prominence
in 1859 wrote an open letter to the condemned John Brown, which was read by tens of thousands of Americans
May 1866 Harper addressed the Eleventh National Women's Rights Convention in New York