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Encyclopedia entry
Frederick Douglass
The International Encyclopedia of Ethics
01/01/2022
Abstract
(1817–95) was born into slavery (see slavery) and died one of the most influential men of the nineteenth century. The author of three autobiographies , as well as the editor of several newspapers, Douglass first made a name for himself on the abolitionist lecture circuit describing in detail his life under slavery and his intense struggle for freedom. Most known for his work to end slavery, he was also a strong proponent of women's suffrage. As a man who literally felt the sting of the whip, Douglass connected his personal abolitionist struggles to broadly advocate for the oppressed, whether it be women in the United States, or Haitians and Irish on foreign soil. This passion for freedom led him to his philosophy, which could best be described as an anti-racist form of self-reliance. Douglass – who later inspired a number of civil rights (see civil rights) activists such as W. E. B. Du Bois and Booker T. Washington – cultivated a number of guiding themes throughout his life, beginning with anti-racism (see racism) and self-reliance. A key component of self-reliance, as outlined by Ralph Waldo Emerson (see emerson, ralph waldo) only a few years before Douglass wrote his first autobiography , was nonconformance to social norms as one sees them in that time period. Douglass's anti-racist approach to self-reliance philosophy was rooted in personal experience, as well as the concepts of natural law (see natural law), applying specifically to the equality of all human beings. For Douglass, an anti-racist approach to self-reliance was not simply a philosophical exercise but a necessary approach to liberation. In the antebellum United States, slavery was widely accepted by the dominant white culture. Those justifying slavery used its history, going as far back as ancient times, to ascribe a moral position of racialized paternalism as rationale for the enslavement of Africans. Though slavery existed prior to the Atlantic slave trade, little compares to the extreme level of violence and oppression African people faced during this period. Activists in the anti-slavery movement felt the urgency of the cause, and abolitionists outlined their philosophies in numerous publications and occasionally carried out anti-slavery actions – from nonviolent civil disobedience (see civil disobedience) to violent uprisings. Unlike other well-known writers and philosophers who suffered under slavery, most famously Epictetus, Douglass was far from stoic about his condition. Whereas Aristotle (see aristotle) viewed humankind as separated under the dichotomy of those who are enslaved and those who are not, Douglass saw nothing natural about this condition. Douglass considered resistance to slavery as key to emancipation, and his freedom came – in large part – through his own efforts, beginning with literacy.
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Details
- Title
- Frederick Douglass
- Publication Details
- The International Encyclopedia of Ethics
- Resource Type
- Encyclopedia entry
- Number of pages
- 5
- Copyright
- Copyright © 2022 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd
- Identifiers
- 99380501091106600
- Academic Unit
- College of Arts, Social Sciences, and Humanities; English
- Language
- English