How Did Frederick Douglass Fight For Civil Rights

Frederick Douglass And His Fight For Civil Rights

There are few people in the U.S.A. that truly acknowledge the black history of their country. Some say they do but they don’t completely understand what blacks went through before the late 1900’s. White people treated blacks as a different species than human. They thought of blacks as less, though they didn’t have life value just because of the color of their skin. Many whites thought the only reason blacks were on Earth was to serve them. Whites made blacks be slaves. Whites would put a price on each black person to sell them away to new owners. Whites owned blacks as items! Whites could easily tell a black person how much their life was worth. As slaves, blacks would have to do whatever the
But why? He would have speeches, write newspapers, write books and do many other things to bring attention to slavery and segregation. He inspired many whites and changed their minds about treating blacks differently. In 1861 Frederick Douglass talked with Abraham Lincoln about freeing slaves and how they would do it. That started the Civil War. When the war ended in 1865 slaves were free. That didn’t solve all problems though. Blacks were still getting treated differently. Douglass didn’t give up. He continued to fight for the freedom of black people. Frederick Douglass was successful in stopping slavery but now he was faced with a new problem, blacks were being treated differently than whites. Blacks would get beaten, stoned, tortured, etc, and most police refused to protect blacks. Some policemen would even join in. The blacks had to drink from separate water fountains, use different bathrooms, and had many more things separately than whites. Another problem was that whites had more rights than blacks. Whites were able to vote, serve on juries, work in skilled trades, etc. While blacks weren’t entitled to those rights. Frederick Douglass knew that being treated differently was better than slavery, but he thought everyone should be treated equally and have the same rights. So he chose to fight in the Civil Rights
This was because Frederick Douglass was born a slave in 1818. His mother was a slave, and his father was a white slave owner. When Douglass was old enough to work, his father sold him to another slave owner. Frederick Douglass was taught to read and write by the slave owner’s wife, when Douglass wasn’t working. Douglass was treated very poorly while he was a slave, and worked very hard. Douglass tried to escape from slavery many times, but was caught every time. In 1838 Douglass attempted to escape again, this time being a 20 year old, and it was successful. Being free, he decided to use his knowledge of reading and writing to use. He would write newspaper articles trying to free slaves, and once slavery ended, he would write about Civil Rights. He was passionate about ending slavery because he didn’t want anyone to go what he went through as a slave. He was passionate about Civil Rights because he saw everyone as equals and hated that he, and other blacks were treated differently, just because of his skin color.

Frederick Douglass was known as “The Father Of America’s Civil Rights Movement” because he played such a big role in ending segregation. He was determined for everyone to be treated equally. To do so he wrote many books, articles, and had many speeches. The Civil Rights Act was finally passed in 1964, however, Douglass wasn’t alive when this law was passed because he died of a heart