In the vision of the world that Douglass offered his listeners, the highest ideal of a person was one who was like God. In a speech of the same name, Douglass argues that “Good men are god in the flesh.” Across a number of eulogies and public speeches, he extolls as examples of this his fellow abolitionists William Lloyd Garrison, Wendell Phillips, and Lucy Stone. In Douglass’s phrasing, Garrison becomes “the man–the Moses, raised up by God, to deliver his modern Israel from bondage.” Abraham Lincoln, he declares in a speech on “Great Men,” likewise, possesses “a more godlike nature than” any man he had ever met.

Douglass did incredible things in his 77 years of life. He escaped slavery (and helped others do the same), surreptitiously taught other slaves to read the New Testament, delivered countless speeches, advised President Abraham Lincoln, championed women’s rights, joined the abolitionist movement, became a statesmen, and stridently condemned the diabolical system of chattel slavery. He saw the false Christianity of the land as an obstacle to seeing and believing in the true and living God. He knew a Christianity that supported oppression and violence misrepresented God’s character and would hinder people from seeing him for who he truly is.

Frederick Douglass is known for his ability to speak and inspire a crowd, but he wasn't always confident talking in front of an audience. His very first public speech was in 1841 at the church of the Rev. Thomas James, who asked Douglass to speak about his experiences as a slave. At first, Douglass was nervous and shy, but as he went on, he became more sure of himself and his speaking skills. After that experience, he went in front of crowds on numerous occasions to speak out against slavery.

My blood boils as I think of the bloody manner in which Messrs. Wright Fairbanks and Garrison West, both class-leaders, in connection with many others, rushed in upon us with sticks and stones, and broke up our virtuous little Sabbath school, at St. Michael’s—all calling themselves Christians! humble followers of the Lord Jesus Christ! But I am again digressing. I held my Sabbath school at the house of a free colored man, whose name I deem it imprudent to mention; for should it be known, it might embarrass him greatly, though the crime of holding the school was committed ten years ago

“I had felt myself doomed to drag this chain and this black through life. All efforts, before, to separate myself from the hateful encumbrance, had only seemed to rivet me the more firmly to it. Baffled and discouraged at times, I had asked myself the question, May not this after all, be God’s work? May He not, for wise ends, have doomed me to this lot?”

Douglass constantly challenged the system and its claim to be founded on Christian beliefs. In his narrative, The Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Douglass says: "I love the pure, peaceable, and impartial Christianity of Christ: I therefore hate the corrupt, slave-holding, women whipping, cradle-plundering, partial and hypocritical Christianity of this land."

Frederick Douglass received this Holy Bible from members of the Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church in Washington, D.C. Embossed with his name on the front cover, this handsome, leather-bound edition was published by Oxford University Press and contains both the Old and New Testaments. The congregation presented it to Douglass on September 1, 1889, as he prepared to travel to Haiti, where he had been appointed by President Benjamin Harrison to serve as U.S. Minister and Consul General. According to the Washington Evening Star, "Mr. Douglass warmly and eloquently thanked the donors for their kindness."

However, researchers found that the Nazis actually established about 42,500 camps and ghettoes between 1933 and 1945

KEY MOMENTS OF FAITH A LEADER TO HIS FELLOW SLAVES In 1835, Douglass was hired out by his master to William Freeland, a farmer living in Talbot County, Maryland. He secretly organized a Sunday school, where he taught other slaves to read: "I held my Sabbath school at the house of a free colored man. . . I had at one time over forty scholars, and those of the right sort, ardently desiring to learn. They were of all ages, though mostly men and women. I look back to those Sundays with an amount of pleasure not to be expressed. They were great days to my soul." A PREACHER IN THE BLACK CHURCH After moving to New Bedford, Massachusetts, Douglass was extremely disappointed by the segregation and condescending manner he found in the northern Methodist churches. He joined the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, and, in 1839, became a licensed preacher in the Church. Although Douglass wrote that he looked back at his time in the AME Zion Church with great joy, he did not remain with them for more than a few years, saying that "it consented to the same spirit which held my brethren in chains." THE NARRATIVE OF AN AMERICAN SLAVE In an appendix to his autobiography, Narrative of the Life of an American Slave, published in 1845, Douglass clarified that he was not opposed to all religion, but only the Christianity of a slaveholding America: "I love the pure, peaceable, and impartial Christianity of Christ: I therefore hate the corrupt, slaveholding, women-whipping, cradle-plundering, partial and hypocritical Christianity of this land. Indeed, I can see no reason, but the most deceitful one, for calling the religion of this land Christianity. I look upon it as the climax of all misnomers, the boldest of all frauds, and the grossest of all libels…" INDEPENDENCE