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Douglass' First Issue of the North Star
"Right is of no sex," was the opening line in his first issue. He was an avid supporter of women's rights from the beginning and sought to align this movement with the abolitionist movement. He was a firm believer in equality for all human beings, regardless of race, ethnicity, or gender. -
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Frederick Douglass and the Woman's Rights Movement
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Seneca Falls Convention
The following year Douglass was one of thirty two men involved in the first organized gathering for women's equal rights. Furthermore, he was the only male who supported the resolution that women should vote. He went on to attend many other state conventions for woman's rights as well as advocate for this movement in the North Star. -
First National Woman's Rights Convention
Douglass, who was in Massachusetts during October, denouncing Fugitive Slave Law, arranged his schedule in order to be a part of this national convention. -
Radical Abolitionist Convention
Radical Abolitionist held a convention in Worcester in order to determine the feasibility of organizing a political party. The convention invited women to participate and was, consequently, the first efforts ever made to organize a party upon the basis of absolute equality. -
The Equal Rights Association
The Woman's Rights Convention was changed to the Equal Rights Association. The focus changed to universal suffrage and Douglass was chosen as one of the three vice-presidents. This officially recognized the coalition between abolitionist and the Woman's Rights Movement. -
The Split
In 1869 the coalition parted ways when Douglass and Henry Wilson argued that the success of woman's suffrage would first depend on the preliminary success of Negro Suffrage. Douglass stated, "When women, because they are woman, are dragged from their homes and hung upon lamp posts; when their children are torn from their arms... then they will have the urgency to obtain the ballot equal to black men." -
The Fifteenth Amendment
When the Fifteenth Amendment became law, he wrote that colored woman should prepare themselves to be ready to vote when a Sixteenth Amendment should become enacted in the future. -
Douglass Remains an Involved Advocate
After 1872 the internal grudges died out and Douglass remained very involved in the Woman's Rights Movement, speaking at every annual national convention.
