Frederick Douglass Quiz

How well do you know the country’s greatest abolitionist and 19th century civil rights leader?

Highlight the space belwo each question to reveal the answer.

Easy questions

1) What are the names of Douglass’ three autobiographies?
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, My Bondage and My Freedom, and The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass

2) How many times did Douglass and Abraham Lincoln meet?
Three

3) What was the name of Frederick Douglass’ first newspaper?
The North Star

4) What is the significance of July 5, 1852?
Douglass gave his famous Fourth of July speech.

5) What were the two books Douglass used to learn how to read and speak?
The Bible and The Columbian Orator

6) What now-famous rights conference did Douglass attend in 1848?
The Seneca Falls (NY) suffragette conference

7) What was the name of Douglass’ final home, which he purchased himself?
Cedar Hill

Medium questions

1) What radical abolitionist did Douglass support for president in 1860?
Garrit Smith

2) What famous regiment did Lewis Henry Douglass serve in?
54th Massachusetts Colored Infantry

3) What instrument did Douglass’ grandson, Joseph, play?
The violin

4) Who encouraged the elderly Douglass to begin crusading once more?
Ida B. Wells

5) What was Wells’ issue?
Lynching of blacks in the South

6) The friendship between Douglass and William Lloyd Garrison, publisher of The Liberator, ended by the early 1850s. What was the initial disagreement over?
They disagreed over tactics and strategies. Garrison believed that the abolitionist movement should never get involved in politics. Douglass strongly disagreed.

7) Why were both the families of Douglass and his second wife, Helen, aghast at their marriage?
Helen was white.

Difficult questions

1) What five public/appointed offices did Douglass hold?
U.S. Marshall of the District of Columbia (1877), Recorder of Deeds for the District of Columbia (1881), Counsel General to Haiti (1888), Charge d’ Affaires for Santo Domingo (1889) and Minister Resident to Haiti (1889)

2) What were the names of his five masters? (These include the men Douglass was "loaned out" to.
Captain Aaron Anthony, Hugh Auld, Thomas Auld, Edward Covey and William Freeland

3) What were the names of his five children?
Rosetta, Lewis Henry, Frederick Jr., Charles Resmond and Annie

4) Name the two parties that nominated Douglass for vice president.
The Liberal Party (1852) and the Equal Rights Party (1872)

5) What famous ancestry did Douglass’ second wife, Helen Pitts, have?
She was a direct descendent of John and Pricilla Alden (who came over on the Mayflower) and a cousin to the famous Adams family (John, John Quincy, Charles and Henry).

6) What couldn’t Douglass’ first wife, Anna, ever do?
She couldn’t read or write.