Celebrate a Hero!! This is the month of Frederick Douglass! AND Black History Month

It will be my quest to say Frederick Douglass's name to someone everyday this month to celebrate an American Hero who had more strength and conviction than any of us can claim.  Beyond that, he was an eloquent speaker and writer.  He is as important to the history of this country as George Washington or Abraham Lincoln, in my opinion, yet we celebrate him the least.  He was not able to be one of our founding fathers, but I would argue he is the most important founding fathers of Emancipation which was as important to American History as the Revolution.

100 years ago this month Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey was born, he later adopted the name Douglass.  Many may know his difficult childhood of slavery, but if you don't, just know he doesn't know his true birthday other than the month of February 1817/8.  Born of a slave mother with the last name Bailey, which probably was a slave master name handed down.  This may have been Douglass's motivation for picking the name Douglass instead of Bailey, no one knows for sure.

He knows little of his mother other than she was, shortly after his birth, moved/sold off to another plantation about 12 miles away.  His memory of her was only late at night in the dark as her only method to see her son was after a long days toil in the fields, walking the 12 miles to see her son go to sleep and walking back to begin another days work.  My heart hurts for what that could mean for a young child.  I'll leave you with that and hope, if you don't know more about this great man, you will seek out more information.  If you want recommendations on how to do that the internet is filled with basic stuff, and I would be happy to point you further.  But, I would recommend reading his own words as he published several autobiographies.  His wonderful speech July 4, 1852 Fordham University site  which also has other references, is worth seeing if you what a taste of his brilliance, but there are numerous websites with lots to see other than wikipedia, which I recommend the former.

 "Whether we turn to the declarations of the past, or to the professions of the present, the conduct of the nation seems equally hideous and revolting. America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future."

When asked "who are the 5 people you would have lunch with", Douglass is one of my 5.  My fantasy wish is for there to be a real Mr. Peabody, that I could travel back in time with, but cartoon characters rarely come to fruition😄😄