Frederick+DouglassCT09

My definition of a hero- It's a person who is nice and brave also someone you could look up to and admire.

The definition of a hero is different to every single person. No person’s definition is the same. Most say that in order to be a hero you have to be strong, brave and courageous and these are all characteristics but whatever you believe a hero is, is a hero. Who has these characteristics you ask? My hero does, and his name is Frederick Douglass. He is a hero because he helped many people through many things such as slavery and getting women rights established. In this essay I will prove that Frederick Douglass was a hero because he’s a person who is nice and brave and also someone you could look up to and admire. []

Frederick Douglass was born in the year 1818 and died at the age of 77 in 1895. He lived on Maryland’s eastern shore where he was trying to help slavery and women's rights. Frederick Douglass was doing all of this because as little boy he was also a slave and thought it was wrong for this to be going on. He wanted everyone to just be equal. Frederick made a difference by speaking out publicly all over America about this. His actions were very important because it helped women's rights and slavery a lot. []

His life was all basically about working on getting slavery to stop. This definitely meets my definition because he was nice and brave to go in front of a lot of people and speak about this topic. When he escaped from his home disguised as a black farmer where his life as a slave was, he started to then give speeches everywhere about slavery and how it was wrong. He was the first person to do this and really made an impact. He changed lots of people lives that were slaves and made them get released. One of his most famous quotes about this, " I am a Republican, a black, dyed in the wool Republican, and I never intend to belong to any other party than the party of freedom and progress". [] Another big part of his life was about getting women to have equal rights. This also meets my definition tremendously because he was very brave to stick up for women and what he did was something lots of people could admire. One thing he did was that he went to the first Women's Rights convention in Seneca Falls in 1848. He spent most of his time on this and slavery but although he focused a little more on slavery he still made a huge impact on this. He had a major impact on everyone’s lives because of this but mostly women. Another famous quote of his, “Fugitive slaves were rare then, and as a fugitive slave lecturer, I had the advantage of being the first one out”. []

Some people who were racist and sexist against blacks and women may have thought that Frederick Douglass was not a hero, but mostly everyone who knows him endears him and thanks him for many things. People did not really try to stop him because all he was doing was making little speeches here and there; however, they did not know he still made an enormous impact on people’s lives. He did not try to avoid any of his problems but just faced them head on and eventually got through practically everything. []

Most people in their lifetime do not leave a legacy behind but this man did. He left behind the legacy of standing up for what you believe in and to stand up for things that are totally wrong like slavery and women having barely any rights. All of his knowledge that he had left behind for us to follow we did, and now there is no slavery and women have equal rights.

If Frederick Douglass were alive today he could address the problem that we kids in school have with our homework. He was a very wise and persuasive man and he would just go up to the main people of the school district and let them know how important it is to let us have our free time to relax and have fun since studies have shown too much homework is harmful to children's well-being. With his knowledge and wisdom he could have that rule changed in no time. This would make us also try harder in school so we wouldn’t have to look forward to be doing lots of homework at our house, but to make us look forward to relaxing and having a good fun filled life. []