america the beautiful or the ugly :: essays research papers

Frederick Douglass (1817-1895) was the best cognize and most influential African American leader of the 1800s. He was innate(p) a slave in Maryland but managed to escape to the northern in 1838. He traveled to Massachusetts and settled in raw(a) Bedford, working as a laborer to support himself. In 1841, he att finished a convention of the Massachusetts Antislavery Society and quickly came to the attendance of its members, eventually becoming a leading figure in the red-hot England antislavery movement.In 1845, Douglass published his autobiography, "The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass an American Slave." With the revelation that he was an escaped slave, Douglass became fearful of possible re-enslavement and fled to Great Britain and stayed there for two years, heavy(p) lectures in support of the antislavery movement in America. With the assistance of English Quakers, Douglass raise enough money to buy his own his freedom and in 1847 he returned to America a s a free man. He settled in Rochester, New York, where he published The North Star, an abolitionist newspaper. He enjoin the local underground railroad which smuggled escaped slaves into Canada and also worked to end racial segregation in Rochesters public schools. In 1852, the leading citizens of Rochester asked Douglass to extend to a speech as part of their Fourth of July celebrations. Douglass accepted their invitation.In his speech, however, Douglass delivered a scathing attack on the hypocrisy of a estate celebrating freedom and independence with speeches, parades and platitudes, while, within its borders, nearly four million human beings were being kept as slaves.Fellow citizens, pardon me, and allow me to ask, why am I called upon to speak here today? What have I or those I represent to do with your issue independence? atomic number 18 the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice, embodied in that announcement of Independence, extended to us? And a m I, therefore, called upon to bring our humble offering to the national altar, and to confess the benefits, and express devout gratitude for the blessings resulting from your independence to us? Would to God, both for your sakes and ours, that an affirmatory answer could be truthfully returned to these questions. Then would my task be light, and my buck easy and delightful. For who is there so cold that a nations sympathy could not warm him? Who so obdurate and dead to the claims of gratitude, that would not thankfully love such priceless benefits?