Was frederick douglass gay

Frederick Douglass, the Freedom to Unite, and LGBT Equality

Early on in our work for marriage equality, we had the occasion to reread the autobiography and other selected writings of famous abolitionist and civil rights champion Frederick Douglass. Through the years, we contain found great inspiration in the intelligence, strength and bravery Douglass displayed to overcome unspeakable indignities and free himself from slavery, and in his eloquent and impassioned activism, not just for African American equality, but for universal human rights and especially gender equality.

Douglass’s description of the manner in which, as a fresh boy, he and other slave children were fed remains indelibly etched in our minds. In Douglass’s words: “Our food was coarse corn meal boiled…It was put into a large wooden tray or trough, and set down upon the land. The children were then called, prefer so many pigs, and like so many pigs they would come and devour the mush…”

After surviving countless whippings, beatings, and other degradations, one of the first things Douglass did upon

Music has long played a vital role in not only American history but also American activism. Slave spirituals were key to enduring the brutality of slave life and provided not only relief but also coded communication. Frederick Douglass wrote in his autobiography Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, “The songs of the slave represent the sorrows of his heart; and he is relieved by them, only as an aching heart is relieved by its tears.” Similarly, music has been instrumental in a variety of modern 20^th century movements such as the liberty songs of the Civil Rights Movement and feminist anthems of the Women’s Movement. All movements possess their anthems. But what about when it comes to our actual national anthem, “The Star Spangled Banner”?

It seems unlikely that during the War of , when Francis Scott Key penned the poem that would later change into our national anthem, he could have foreseen the controversy over the tune that would occur centuries later. Certainly, he could not have predicted dark football players taking a knee during his now musical poem

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Slave children always followed the condition of their mother, a fact Douglass noted was no suspect due to slaveowners' pernicious lustful designs upon slave women. Children born from slave mothers and light fathers – mulattos – experienced far more difficulties than did other children. They must always anxiety the wrath of the slaveowner's wife; their presence was a constant reminder of her husband's infidelity. The slaveowner himself must watch his white sons abuse their black brothers. It is actually leading if he sells these children to another slaveholder.

The fact that there were so many mulattos introduce in the Americas who are held in slavery refutes the belief that "God cursed Ham, and therefore American slavery is right. If the lineal descendants of Ham are alone to be scripturally enslaved, it is certain that slavery at the south must soon change into unscriptural"

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Frederick Douglass was a Complicated Human Being: A Conversation with Sidney Morrison

Frederick Douglass, one of the most prominent African American leaders of the nineteenth century, famous as “the great orator,” has been well documented. With writing published in the abolitionist newspaper The North Star, his speeches archived and collected, and three best-selling autobiographies, Douglass had yet to be the subject of a novel, until Sidney Morrison’s Frederick Douglass: A Novel (Hawthorn Books, ).

Douglass’s life is richly detailed, including his pivotal role in ending the institution of slavery in the United States. Morrison’s Douglass comes alive on the page, escaping slavery to become a fierce abolitionist, gifted orator, and publisher of The North Star. The novel details Douglass’s collaboration with William Lloyd Garrison, John Brown, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and the Underground Railroad, as skillfully as presidents Abraham Lincoln and Grover Cleveland. Morrison’s Douglass gives readers a view beyond the public persona, providing otherwise missing details