Why did Frederick Douglass author not one, not two, but three autobiographies during his battle for equal justice during the 19th century?
“White people would say an African American can’t possibly be that intelligent,” explained local historian and activist Saleem Mannan, and so Douglass felt compelled to prove himself over and over again.
The topic was an 1885 visit to Saginaw by the legendary abolitionist, with an audience of more than 50 during a Feb. 7 “Lunch and Learn” session at the Castle Museum of Saginaw County.
By that time, Douglass was guessing his age to be 67, which was his best estimate because slave births were not deemed worthy of record-keeping.
He already had authored:
- “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave” (1845, seven years after his water-bound escape via a harbor on Baltimore’s shore).
- “My Bondage and My Freedom” (1855).
- “Life and Times of Frederick Douglass” (1881).
His prior Saginaw visit in 1868 had not garnered much attention, but by 1885 he had become so prominent that the Saginaw Evening News transcribed and published each and every word of his two-hour speech, standard duration for the time, preserved for posterity on microfilm. Luncheon participants received keepsake print copies, which fill 13 narrow-margin pages.
The early-August address to “Friends and Fellow Citizens” begins:
“We have met here today to take fitting and grateful notice of two of the most remarkable and striking events of this wonderful nineteenth century; a century which has no equal in the annals of time, for its vast and wonderful contributions to the moral and material progress of mankind.”
One of those events, of course, was the Emancipation Proclamation near the close of the U.S. Civil War in 1865. The other was the 1835 ending of the British slave trade in its colonies at the time.
Mannan, known as a local orator in his own right, read aloud several passages in tribute to one of his main historical heroes who always “kept his integrity” amid so much oppression and day-by-day bigotry.
“How can he be so profound, so elegant?” was Saleem’s question for the audience.
Even more remarkable, Douglass and his enslaved peers were denied formal education. He became self-taught by observing the children of his slave masters.
“All learning is absorbed,” Mannan said. “We only have to be motivated properly.”
