PRINTER'S NO. 1556
THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF PENNSYLVANIA
SENATE RESOLUTION
No.
280
Session of
2018
INTRODUCED BY MARTIN, DINNIMAN, FONTANA, ARGALL, WILLIAMS,
BROWNE, FARNESE, FOLMER, SABATINA, BREWSTER, YUDICHAK,
GORDNER, AUMENT, HUTCHINSON, BAKER, RAFFERTY, VULAKOVICH,
MENSCH, HUGHES AND BOSCOLA, MARCH 19, 2018
INTRODUCED AND ADOPTED, MARCH 19, 2018
A RESOLUTION
Recognizing 2018 as the bicentennial anniversary of the birth of
Frederick Douglass and honoring the life and legacy of
Frederick Douglass and his contributions to the United States
of America.
WHEREAS, Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey was born in
February 1818 on the Eastern Shore of the Chesapeake Bay in
Talbot County, Maryland; and
WHEREAS, After 20 years as a slave in Maryland, Frederick
Bailey fled to the North in 1838 and changed his name to
Frederick Douglass; and
WHEREAS, After escaping to Massachusetts, Frederick Douglass
became a preacher in an African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church;
and
WHEREAS, In September 1838, Frederick Douglass married Anna
Murray, a free black woman from Baltimore; and
WHEREAS, Frederick Douglass and Anna Murray Douglass had five
children: Rosetta Douglass, Lewis Henry Douglass, Frederick
Douglass, Jr., Charles Remond Douglass and Annie Douglass, who
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died at 10 years of age; and
WHEREAS, In 1847, Frederick Douglass cofounded the North
Star, an antislavery newspaper; and
WHEREAS, In 1864, Frederick Douglass served as an advisor to
President Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War; and
WHEREAS, In 1874, Frederick Douglass was appointed president
of the Freedmen's Savings and Trust Company, a bank chartered by
the Congress of the United States to safeguard the savings of
African-American Civil War veterans and former slaves; and
WHEREAS, Appointed by President Rutherford B. Hayes as the
United States Marshal for the District of Columbia in 1877,
Frederick Douglass became the first African American to receive
United States Senate confirmation for a presidential
appointment; and
WHEREAS, Frederick Douglass authored three books, including
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave
in 1845, My Bondage and My Freedom in 1855 and Life and Times of
Frederick Douglass in 1881; and
WHEREAS, After the death of Anna Murray Douglass in 1882,
Frederick Douglass married Helen Pitts in 1884; and
WHEREAS, In 1889, President Benjamin Harrison appointed
Frederick Douglass as the United States Minister to Haiti; and
WHEREAS, Frederick Douglass delivered his last public lecture
at West Chester University on February 1, 1895; and
WHEREAS, Frederick Douglass delivered his final speech at a
meeting of the National Council of Women in Washington, DC, on
February 20, 1895 and died at 77 years of age later that day;
and
WHEREAS, The Washington, DC, home of Frederick Douglass was
added to the National Park Service system on September 5, 1962,
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and was designated a National Historic Site in 1988; and
WHEREAS, Frederick Douglass was an abolitionist, author and
orator, delivering numerous culture-shifting speeches to
include, "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July," "Self-Made
Men" and "The Hypocrisy of American Slavery"; and
WHEREAS, In 2013, the Congress of the United States installed
a statue of Frederick Douglass at the United States Capitol, in
Emancipation Hall; therefore be it
RESOLVED, That the Senate recognize 2018 as the bicentennial
anniversary of the birth of Frederick Douglass; and be it
further
RESOLVED, That the Senate honor the life and legacy of
Frederick Douglass and his contributions to the United States of
America.
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