Chapter 4 - Washington, DC

Summary

After his house in Rochester, New York, burned down in 1872, Frederick Douglass moved to Washington, DC. He remained there until his death twenty-three years later. Douglass had moved to the capital city to employ his considerable talents and reputation to influence federal government policies to benefit all African Americans. He initially viewed Washington as a proving ground to demonstrate how rapidly his race could advance once out of slavery. Douglass soon learned the precariousness of gains made during Reconstruction and witnessed his final “home” city become a prototype for southern white resistance to racial and economic equality. In vain, Douglass used his skills as a journalist, orator, and political “lobbyist” to resist the reduction of political rights and economic opportunities in the nation’s capital in the final decades of the nineteenth century.