Frederick Douglass Abolitionist Essay

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Frederick Douglass escaped the slave south and earned his freedom in the 1830s. He became a famous abolitionist and worked closely with another abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison. Abolitionists, such as these two men, believed that slavery should be abolished. Douglass’s Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave was not only a response to the opposition he encountered by the mostly white society, but was also a form of the spiritual conversion narrative with the distinction between true Christianity and false Christianity. In the early 1840s, the abolitionist movement (aka the anti-slavery movement), was gaining momentum in the far Northeast. Abolitionists believed that the U.S. would be better off if the Southern states …show more content…

There was a lot of hostility towards him, because of his skin color (as he was light-skinned), his handsome looks, and his intellect and eloquence. This made many whites believe that he could not possibly be neither black nor a former slave. This of course was false. Therefore, this Narrative was a response to this opposition against Douglass. The Narrative provides two, not one, but two prefaces from Garrison and another abolitionist Wendell Phillips, that attests to the fact that Douglass is speaking the truth. That he did in fact experience these things. That he was a slave, and is experiencing this kind oppression again by these …show more content…

Clarifying in his appendix, calling true Christianity “the Christianity of Christ” and the latter “the Christianity of this land”. By pointing out the basic contradiction between the charitable, peaceful principles of Christianity and the violent, immoral actions of slaveholders. As Garrison mentioned in his preface, “Is it not evil, only evil, and that continuously? (pg. x). As Douglass goes on to say, “I love the pure, peaceable, and impartial Christianity of Christ: I therefore hate the corrupt, slaveholding, women-whipping, cradle-plundering, partial and hypocritical Christianity of this land”

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