Frederick Douglass: Western New York’s 19th Century African American Abolitionist Orator

As the U.S. pauses to commemorate the contributions of Civil Rights Leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on January 15, a century earlier, Western New York was influenced by another powerful African American writer and orator, Frederick Douglass.

Douglass was born in 1818 in Maryland, enslaved.? Despite being unlawful at the time, the slave owner’s wife taught Douglass the basics of literacy as a child, until she was forbidden to do so by her husband.? Because of the education prohibition, his desire for literacy only increased.? Douglass realized the power of reading, and said:? “I set out with… a fixed purpose, at whatever cost… to learn how to read.”? Douglass subversively continued his education by making friends with Caucasian children and asked them to teach him everything they knew about reading.

In 1838, after suffering terrible abuse in which he nearly lost an eye, Douglass escaped bondage.? He first arrived in New York City, and then lived for the next decade in Massachusetts.? Douglass moved to Western New York, in Rochester, in 1847.? There he founded and edited a weekly abolitionist newspaper, The North Star (later retitled Frederick Douglass Paper).? Two years earlier, Douglass wrote and had published his first autobiography, the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, which became a bestseller and highly influential in the American abolitionist movement.? In Buffalo, Narrative was popular, being promoted and sold at Oliver G. Steele’s bookstore at 206 Main St. (current site of Seneca One).

Just like Martin Luther King, Jr., Douglass was a talented orator.? He lectured throughout the United States and Europe, including frequent stops in Buffalo.? His first Buffalo visit took place In August 1843 to participate in the National Convention of Colored Citizens, an assembly of over 40 African American abolitionist organizers from Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Ohio.? The Convention was held in the former First Baptist church building (northeast corner of Washington and Seneca Sts., now part of Sahlen Field Buffalo Bisons baseball park) and its purpose was to “deliberate on… the colored man’s rights and adopt such measures as will effectually secure him the privileges of an American citizen.”

The five-day convention, held August 15-19, was organized and chaired by Buffalonian Samuel H. Davis (an educator who later became minister of the Second Baptist Church at 511 Michigan St. and was instrumental in its construction during 1845-49).? Douglass’ first Buffalo public abolition lecture was given on August 10, 1843 (prior to the start of the convention), and held in the former First Baptist Church structure, as well as a second lecture outdoors at Court House Park (now Lafayette Square) two days later.? Another of the convention’s Buffalo organizers was Rev. George Weir, Sr. pastor of the African Methodist Episcopal Church located on the south side of Vine St., No. 17, between Elm and Oak Sts.? The church was a small wooden building constructed in 1839, and likely Douglass and other convention attendees attended worship services and other events there.? Vine Street was widened, extended, and renamed William Street in the late 1920s.? The site of the AME Vine Street church is now a parking garage.

Douglass was highly regarded in Buffalo, particularly with abolitionists and those involved in the Underground Railroad.? Throughout the politically turbulent decade of the 1850s, Douglass was a popular lecturer, appearing at various sites throughout Buffalo, including Erie County Court House (site of Buffalo Central Public Library), Kremlin Hall (Pearl and Eagle Sts.), McArthur’s Garden (former AM&A’s building), and the East Presbyterian Church (Elm St., between N. and S. Division Sts.).? One notable lecture occurred at Townsend Block (Main at Swan Sts.) in 1853, two years before his second autobiography was published, My Bondage and My Freedom.

At Townsend, Douglass not only lectured about abolition, but also colonization, which was proposed for freed slaves in South America and Africa.? Douglass was against colonization.? He told Buffalonians with his powerful, persuasive oration:? “I believe that simultaneously with the landing of the Pilgrims, there landed slaves on the shores of this continent, and that for 230 years and more we have had a foothold on this continent. We have grown up with you; we have watered your soil with our tears; nourished it with our blood, tilled it with our hard hands. Why should we not stay here? We came when it was a wilderness, and were the pioneers of civilization on this continent. We leveled your forests; our hands removed the stumps from your fields, and raised the first crops and brought the first produce to your tables. We have been with you, are still with you, have been with you in adversity, and by the help of God will be with you in prosperity.”

What was Buffalo’s opinion of Douglass?? Clues can be gathered by Buffalo Commercial Advertiser newspaper’s review of Douglass’ 1855 autobiography:? “Here is a man, who, by his energy and talent, has raised himself from the most abject condition to which a human being can be reduced, to a position of considerable influence, in spite of the obstacles he has been obliged to encounter in the prejudices existing against his class and color… Douglass has shown that he understands the value of freedom, and as soon as he had won it, he set himself to improve his condition.? He is one of the most remarkable examples of self-education which the history of our country presents… an interesting writer, and one of the most effective platform speakers in the country.”? The Buffalo Express newspaper said? My Bondage and My Freedom “speaks volumes in praise of the man, his intellect and culture.? The incidents of his life, woven up in the web of narrative by his polished and classical mind, and graceful pen, are full of interest.”

For Douglass and Buffalo, the 1860s Civil War decade held both sadness and jubilation for the United States and for Buffalo. On New Year's Day 1864, a celebration to commemorate President Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation took place at St. James Hall, corner of Eagle and Washington Sts. (present site of M&T Bank headquarters, One M&T Plaza).? The highlight of the celebration was an oration given by Douglass, after which followed a celebratory banquet and concert.?

Just one year later, Lincoln’s funeral train headed west from Albany to Cleveland, and Buffalo was its only stop between.? On April 27, 1865, President Lincoln was lying-in-state, also at St. James Hall.? An estimated 100,000 mourners passed through St. James Hall to pay their respects to the assassinated President; surely Frederick Douglass among them.?

Douglas left Western New York in 1872, and moved to Washington, DC.? He died there in 1895, but is buried in Rochester, where he had lived for 25 years. He lay-in-state at Rochester’s City Hall and is interred in the Douglass family plot nearby at Mt. Hope Cemetery.? A bronze statue of Douglass was sculpted in 1899 by Sidney W. Edwards, the first in the U.S. that memorialized a specific African American.? The statue is installed as the centerpiece of Rochester Highland Park’s Frederick Douglass Memorial Plaza, created in 2019.

Western New York’s mid-19th Century significant role in abolition and civil rights continued into the 20th Century with The Niagara Movement, as recently chronicled by WNED.? This effort, in turn, led to the creation of the NAACP, closely associated with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.? While there is no statue of Frederick Douglass in Buffalo, in 2017 its AKG Art Museum, in partnership with Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority, created an outdoor mural at corner of Ferry and Michigan Sts. It features portraits of both Dr. Martin Luther, King, Jr. and Frederick Douglass, along with 26 other civil rights leaders painted by Buffalo artists.? In November 2023 an announcement was made that Buffalo’s unique and influential role in United States’ abolition and Underground Railroad history will receive $100,000 for “Freedom’s Footsteps,” Visit Buffalo Niagara 's initiative to market the Michigan Street African American Heritage Corridor, its centerpiece being the Michigan Street Baptist Church. All of the sites that Frederick Douglass visited in Buffalo during the 1840s, 50s and 60s are within a several block radius, and it's inspiring to visit these places, knowing that Buffalo's rich contributions to the evolution of U.S. civil rights, personified and remembered nationally on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.