Third Graders Research Influential Black Leaders

Frederick Douglass was born on February 14, 1817.  He was a slave and then became known as a leader against slavery.  Growing up he did not live with his mother.  He lived with his grandparents from the age of one week old and learned how to read and write.

When Frederick was eight, he was sent to the main plantation.  When he was eighteen, he ran away.  He changed his name from Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey to Frederick Augustus Douglass so slave catchers couldn’t find him.  He met Anna along the way and married her.  They had four children.  He went to England for two years.  He came back with papers and told people he was a free black man.  He believed that all black men should be free.  When Abraham Lincoln was elected president, the Civil War began.  He went to the White House to ask Lincoln if black men could join the army.  Lincoln said, “yes.”  Later on Douglass had two more requests.  He wanted black men in the army to get the same pay as white men and the same medical treatment.

After the war was over he was a hero, even though he wasn’t in the army…Douglass continued to fight to end slavery.  He was inspired by freedom to be abolitionist and a leader in civil rights.

By Maxi B.

 

Carter G. Woodson was the founder of Black History Month.  He was born on December 19, 1875, in New Canton, Virginia…His father could not read or write.  He said, “It is never too late to learn.”

His father was a runaway slave.  His mother was a slave.  When he was eighteen his two sisters wanted to go to Douglass High School.  Carter wanted to go, too.  When he went to meet the principal, his reason to go there was, “It is never too late to learn.”  The principal admitted him…when he graduated eighteen months later, he surprised everyone.  Next he went to college.  After a few months, he took the job of principal at Douglass High School.  He repeated to his students what his father had told him, “It is never too late to learn.”

On August 31, 1903, a letter came to Carter.  It asked him to teach children in a Philippine school.  Carter accepted…when he went there, he realized there was a problem.  The children there were not learning, so he taught the children a song.  “Time to shake the apple tree.”  But there were no apples in the Philippines!  He changed the words to, “Time to shake the Bombay tree.”  Carter went back to America, but before he left, he taught the children about black American’s history.  He claimed, “We’re teaching ourselves about ourselves.”

By Jack B.

Mary Church Terrell was a leader of equality.  She was born an only child on September 23, 1863, in Memphis, Tennessee.  Her father, who was born a slave, was named Robert Church and her mother was Louisa Church.  Her father wanted Mary to have the best of everything.

When she was a teenager her mother and father sent her alone to Ohio for high school.  She moved to Ohio because her parents wanted her to have a good education.  After that, she graduated from Oberlin College at the top of her class.  Then she studied music and writing in Europe.

She moved back to Washington, D.C., where she married Robert Heberton Terrell.  She was asked to serve on the Washington, D.C., school board.  She believed that all women had a right to vote and that all children should get an education.  She joined the National Association of Colored Women and became the first president, fighting for women’s rights.  She later joined the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and worked for the rights of all Americans and for freedom.  In 1920 the law changed and women could vote in the North.  She worked to help end segregation.

By Charlie R.