In the US, movements to promote women's rights and rights for Black Americans have often allied and sometimes been at odds. It's worth comparing and contrasting the two causes at times to look for nuance that is more easily overlooked when only examining one case study.
Frederick Douglass was born into slavery in the early 1800s (around 1817 or 1818), eventually escaped, bought his freedom from his owner and went on to be a very influential figure in the US. He was not only an abolitionist and advocate for the rights of Black Americans, he supported women's rights generally.
My recollection of things I have previously read about Douglass conflicts with this account of how he learned to read:
I'm not wholly surprised that the above account suggests she eventually stopped teaching him. What she was doing was not approved by her husband and women's rights weren't much better than the rights of Black Americans at that time. She would not have been in a strong position to defy her husband and the rest of White society indefinitely.
Wikipedia also says this, which seems to conflict with the idea that Douglass only began to learn the alphabet at the late age of twelve:
Other potentially conflicting tidbits on his Wikipedia page:
Today, I find myself sort of speculating that it is likely that some of the details of his life were intentionally obfuscated, perhaps not even by him but to him. It seems plausible to me that someone likely intentionally planted some of the seeds of his later accomplishments at an early age and that the person who defied her husband to teach Douglass to read seems like a likely candidate for such.
If they were, in fact, studying the Bible together as a means to improve her reading skills and his both, the Bible is full of wisdom about how to defy oppressive overlords and the like. Perhaps the passages she chose to read with him mattered at least as much as the act of teaching him to read for helping to shape him into a future social reformer, abolitionist and statesman.
Regardless of how accurate or inaccurate Wikipedia and/or my memory are concerning the details of his early life, it is well established that a woman taught him to read in defiance of her husband's objections and the fact that he was literate played a large role in his ability to rise from slavery and become a powerful leader.
Presumably Douglass knew that he owed a lot of his success to the risks taken by a White woman in defiance of her husband and society to teach him to read. Perhaps this is part of why he was a staunch supporter of women's rights.
Frederick Douglass was born into slavery in the early 1800s (around 1817 or 1818), eventually escaped, bought his freedom from his owner and went on to be a very influential figure in the US. He was not only an abolitionist and advocate for the rights of Black Americans, he supported women's rights generally.
In 1848, Douglass was the only black person to attend the Seneca Falls Convention, the first women's rights convention, in upstate New York.He later had a falling out with the leaders of the women's suffrage movement of the day. Wikipedia describes it thusly:
After the Civil War, when the 15th Amendment giving black men the right to vote was being debated, Douglass split with the Stanton-led faction of the women's rights movement. Douglass supported the amendment, which would grant suffrage to black men. Stanton opposed the 15th Amendment because it limited the expansion of suffrage to black men; she predicted its passage would delay for decades the cause for women's right to vote.Wikipedia leaves out the more colorful detail that this was a quite public debate and his longstanding ally Susan B. Anthony told him "You wouldn't trade your gender and skin color for mine." After this ugly incident, the two of them never spoke again.
My recollection of things I have previously read about Douglass conflicts with this account of how he learned to read:
...in 1826, Douglass was given to Lucretia Auld, wife of Thomas Auld, who sent him to serve Thomas' brother Hugh Auld and his wife Sophia Auld in Baltimore. From the day he arrived, Sophia saw to it that Douglass was properly fed and clothed, and that he slept in a bed with sheets and a blanket.My recollection was that she began teaching him to read when he was seven, the typical age of most second graders. Most women of that era had between a second and fourth grade level of education and I recall reading that she gave the excuse that she needed a study partner to help her learn to better read the Bible so she could be a good Christian.
When Douglass was about 12, Sophia Auld began teaching him the alphabet. Hugh Auld disapproved of the tutoring, feeling that literacy would encourage slaves to desire freedom. Douglass later referred to this as the "first decidedly antislavery lecture" he had ever heard. "'Very well, thought I,'" wrote Douglass. "'Knowledge unfits a child to be a slave.' I instinctively assented to the proposition, and from that moment I understood the direct pathway from slavery to freedom."
Under her husband's influence, Sophia came to believe that education and slavery were incompatible and one day snatched a newspaper away from Douglass. She stopped teaching him altogether and hid all potential reading materials, including her Bible, from him.
I'm not wholly surprised that the above account suggests she eventually stopped teaching him. What she was doing was not approved by her husband and women's rights weren't much better than the rights of Black Americans at that time. She would not have been in a strong position to defy her husband and the rest of White society indefinitely.
Wikipedia also says this, which seems to conflict with the idea that Douglass only began to learn the alphabet at the late age of twelve:
Douglass credited The Columbian Orator, an anthology that he discovered at about age 12, with clarifying and defining his views on freedom and human rights.If there was genuine intent on the part of Sophia Auld to empower Douglass to escape slavery one day, it surely would not have been openly admitted. A cover story of "I'm just a woman wanting to learn to read the Good Book better so I can better be a good Christian woman" seems to be much more plausible for someone intent on what would have been subversive behavior regardless of what her real motivation may or may not have included.
Other potentially conflicting tidbits on his Wikipedia page:
The opinion was...whispered that my master was my father; but of the correctness of this opinion I know nothing.My recollection is that Douglass spoke in his lifetime about how offensive the faces of mixed race slaves like himself were, a painful reminder to White women of the sexual liaisons their White husbands sometimes had with their female slaves. Some texts insist that all such liaisons were a case of rape, and yet the somewhat well-documented relationship between Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings suggests that it may have at times been more complicated than that.
He was the most photographed American of the 19th century, consciously using photography to advance his political views.
Today, I find myself sort of speculating that it is likely that some of the details of his life were intentionally obfuscated, perhaps not even by him but to him. It seems plausible to me that someone likely intentionally planted some of the seeds of his later accomplishments at an early age and that the person who defied her husband to teach Douglass to read seems like a likely candidate for such.
If they were, in fact, studying the Bible together as a means to improve her reading skills and his both, the Bible is full of wisdom about how to defy oppressive overlords and the like. Perhaps the passages she chose to read with him mattered at least as much as the act of teaching him to read for helping to shape him into a future social reformer, abolitionist and statesman.
Regardless of how accurate or inaccurate Wikipedia and/or my memory are concerning the details of his early life, it is well established that a woman taught him to read in defiance of her husband's objections and the fact that he was literate played a large role in his ability to rise from slavery and become a powerful leader.
Presumably Douglass knew that he owed a lot of his success to the risks taken by a White woman in defiance of her husband and society to teach him to read. Perhaps this is part of why he was a staunch supporter of women's rights.