Frederick Douglas and John Brown discuss methods of abolishing American Negro slavery. Brown was an antislavery leader while Douglas was an ex-slave and he internationally recognized antislavery teaching himself to read and write. Even though they differed on tactics to be used, they were together in leading American Negro slaves to freedom. Although Douglas became very impressed with John Brown with his radical Abolitionist, to end slavery, Douglas decided not to join Brown and his plan to overthrow the government as it was too risky and very dangerous. But, Douglas was warrant for an arrest after the Harper's Ferry raid with his involvement with John Brown. Douglas had to run away again, this time to Canada for several months. Even though Brown was not the richest man in America of his time, Brown always found a way to support the abolitionist cause. Both he and Douglas participated in the Underground Railroad and, in 1851, helped establish the League of Gileadites, an organization that worked to protect escaped slaves from slave catchers.
Abolitionist John Brown, bust-length. Engraving fr...
Salt print, three quarter length portrait of John ...
English: On the day of his execution, December 2, ...In 1847 Frederick Douglas met Brown for the first time in Springfield, Massachusetts. In this meeting, Douglas stated that, "though a white gentleman, [Brown] is in sympathy a black man, and as deeply interested in our cause, as though his own soul had been pierced with the iron of slavery." It was at this meeting that Brown first explained to Douglas his plan to lead a war to free slaves. "He is socializing and associating with Blacks in this community," comments historian, James Horton. "This is something unheard of for a white man to be doing in the middle of the 19th century. Most abolitionists were lukewarm, at best, on the notion of racial equality. John Brown in this regard was, I think, remarkable."
On May 24, 1856, in...