Frederick Douglass: First Editorial of the North Star

Context

Nineteenth-century reformers relied extensively on print media to spread their message that slavery was morally wrong. Many national and regional antislavery organizations had their own weekly newspapers that incorporated editorials, fiction, poetry, and letters to the editor describing the abolitionist campaign. The most successful were edited by white abolitionists in northeastern cities such as Boston and New York. In 1842 Douglass acted as a correspondent for several newspapers, including Garrison’s Liberator and the National Anti-Slavery Standard, the official organ of the American Anti-Slavery Society, based in New York City. During the years Douglass lectured (1841–1847), his letters to the editor informed readers of abolitionist activities and sentiments across the northern states. He gained considerable skill as a writer, along with a desire to publish his own newspaper, which would allow for the expression of the black reform perspective.

In Douglass’s evolving view, black elevation was intimately tied to the abolition movement. He sought to expand his involvement with his race peers. In the 1830s, African American abolitionists and civil rights activists began gathering in a series of so-called National Negro Conventions aimed at directing action toward issues that would uplift or elevate their position in society. In addition to the abolition of slavery, attention was given to ending racial discrimination and gaining the right to vote in states where black suffrage rights were denied or restricted. Douglass became a strong leader of this movement in the late 1840s, especially after traveling abroad and experiencing a distinct lack of prejudice in Europe.

Following the publication of his 1845 autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Written by Himself , Douglass left the United States for an extended speaking tour of Great Britain and Ireland. During his time abroad he acquired an international reputation as an orator and leader in the movement to end American slavery. While he was overseas, British reformers raised funds to purchase Douglass’s freedom from his slave master, Hugh Auld. Upon receiving a deed of emancipation, Douglass returned to the United States a free man. He also returned with a substantial sum of money donated to help him start an independent newspaper.

Douglass arrived back in the United States in April 1847 and, along with William Lloyd Garrison, soon began a lengthy lecture tour of western states, including Ohio. Douglass continued on the lecture circuit alone when Garrison fell ill at Cleveland, never mentioning to his close friend and mentor that he planned to move to Rochester, New York, to begin publishing the North Star. Garrison was less than supportive when he learned of Douglass’s plans, for two reasons. Douglass’s relocation to Rochester and engagement in editing a weekly newspaper would necessarily reduce the time he could be expected to lecture on behalf of Garrison’s American Anti-Slavery Society. More ominously, Garrison feared that the North Star would be potential competition for his own weekly abolitionist newspaper. Beginning publication in January 1831, Garrison’s weekly, The Liberator was soon the most widely circulated reform paper in the northern states. Despite the reaction of Garrison and others in Boston, abolitionists and reformers in Rochester offered considerable encouragement and support for Douglass’s venture.

A number of factors influenced Douglass’s choice of cities from which to publish the paper. The region of western New York in which Rochester is located was an important center of reform activity, often referred to as the “Burned-over District” because of the intense religious fervor during the Second Great Awakening of the 1820s and 1830s. This Protestant religious reawakening inspired many to get involved in reform movements, including that for the abolition of slavery. Rochester was also known as the last stop for fugitive slaves traveling the Underground Railroad to Canada. Douglass had passed through the region during a lecture tour in 1842 and befriended a number of families in Rochester’s reform community. Rochester was also far removed from the circle of abolitionists in New England, and especially Boston, which had influenced his early career as an abolitionist. The city appealed to Douglass as he sought a place to express his independent voice and brand of reform, which incorporated a push for black civil rights as well as the abolition of slavery.

The somewhat unenthusiastic response of Garrison and his followers for Douglass’s newspaper venture made support from the African American community crucial to achieving his goal. Douglass’s autonomy and the potential for his newspaper’s successful launch grew more certain after he encountered Martin R. Delany, a Pittsburgh physician and editor of the Mystery, the most widely circulated reform paper edited by an African American west of the Allegheny Mountains. The two met during Douglass’s western tour in the summer of 1847. Unlike most of Douglass’s Garrisonian colleagues, Delany was first and foremost a black reformer, who as early as the 1830s flirted with the notion that blacks could succeed only if they left the United States. Although Delany and Douglass would famously argue over African colonization by blacks from the United States and over Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin in the 1850s, in 1847 they were two black activists of like mind. Douglass’s newspaper would be an opportunity for Douglass to explore his own views on moral reform and incorporate self-improvement and black uplift, serving as an expression of his newfound independence. Delany was the perfect partner to lend a hand in this transition. An experienced editor, Delany agreed to help launch the North Star, and his name would appear on the masthead as coeditor until June 1849.

Two months before initiating the North Star, Douglass attended a black convention held at Troy, New York. The convention raised Douglass’s awareness of the most pressing issues of debate among black intellectuals, including the establishment of independent colleges for blacks, fostering business and commerce, black suffrage, and a prominent presence for the black press. In a report submitted by a committee headed by the African American physician James McCune Smith, the convention called for a national press that would promote the interests of African Americans in the North as well as advocate for the abolition of slavery. Considering Douglass was in the midst of plans for the North Star, he must have been pleased with this discussion. He entertained thoughts that his paper would become the national organ Smith called for at the convention. In the first issue of his paper, Douglass expressed a similar desire for the African American reform voice to be heard.