Happy Birthday Frederick Douglass
Happy Valentine’s Day
Today, Valentine’s Day is also the chosen birthday of the celebrated American abolitionist, orator, writer and statesman Frederick Douglass. As a former enslaved person, he never knew his exact birth year which was posthumously determined to be 1818.
The only information given to him by a former master was that he was born in February. Not knowing his actual birthday in February, he chose Valentine’s Day because he remembered his enslaved mother, Harriet Bailey, had called him her “Little Valentine” during the few precious times she was allowed to visit him. She was separated from him after his birth and was sent back to work on her farm about twelve miles away. Before she died in 1826, she only managed to visit Frederick a few times at night after her day’s work.
As he recalls,
I do not recollect of ever seeing my mother by the light of day. She was with me in the night. She would lie down with me, and get me to sleep, but long before I waked she was gone.
I do not remember to have ever met a slave who could tell of his birthday. They seldom come nearer to it than planting-time, harvest-time, cherry-time, spring-time, or fall-time. A want of information concerning my own was a source of unhappiness to me even during childhood. The white children…
