Bill Text: MI SR0130 | 2017-2018 | 99th Legislature | Enrolled
Bill Title: A resolution recognizing February 2018, as the Bicentennial of Frederick Douglass.
Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Republican 1-0)
Status: (Passed) 2018-06-12 - Adopted [SR0130 Detail]
Download: Michigan-2017-SR0130-Enrolled.html
SR130, As Adopted by Senate, February 20, 2018
Senators O'Brien and Schuitmaker offered the following resolution:
Senate Resolution No. 130.
A resolution recognizing February 2018, as the Bicentennial of Frederick Douglass.
Whereas, Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey was born in February 1818, on the Eastern Shore of the Chesapeake Bay in Talbot County, Maryland; and
Whereas, After 20 years as a slave in Maryland, he escaped to the North in 1838; and
Whereas, As a fugitive slave, Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey changed his name to Frederick Douglass; and
Whereas, After escaping to Massachusetts, he became a preacher in an African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church; and
Whereas, In September 1838, Mr. Douglass married Anna Murray, a free black woman from Baltimore. This union produced five children: Rosetta Douglass, Lewis Henry Douglass, Frederick Douglass Jr., Charles Remond Douglass, and Annie Douglass (died at the age of ten); and
Whereas, In 1845, he wrote his first book, an autobiography entitled, the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave; and
Whereas, In 1847, Mr. Douglass co-founded The North Star, an anti-slavery newspaper; and
Whereas, In 1855, he wrote a second book, My Bondage and My Freedom; and
Whereas, In 1864, Mr. Douglass served as an advisor to President Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War; and
Whereas, In 1874, he was appointed president of the Freedman’s Savings and Trust Company, a bank chartered by Congress to safeguard the savings of African American Civil War Veterans and former slaves; and
Whereas, In 1877, President Rutherford B. Hayes appointed Mr. Douglass as the United States Marshal for the District of Columbia, becoming the first African American to receive U.S. Senate confirmation for a Presidential appointment; and
Whereas, In 1881, he wrote his final autobiography describing his experience during the Civil War entitled, The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass; and
Whereas, After the death of his first wife, Anna, in 1882, Mr. Douglass married Helen Pitts in 1884; and
Whereas, In 1889, President Benjamin Harrison appointed Frederick Douglass as the Minister to Haiti; and
Whereas, On February 20, 1895, he delivered his final speech to the National Council of Women in Washington, D.C.; and
Whereas, Mr. Douglass died at the age of seventy-seven years old on February 20, 1895 in Washington, D.C.; and
Whereas, The Washington, D.C. home of Frederick Douglass was added to the National Park system on September 5, 1962 and was designated a National Historic Site in 1988; and
Whereas, Frederick Douglass was an abolitionist, author and orator, who delivered numerous culture-shifting speeches including, “What to the Slave is the 4th of July,” “Self-Made Man,” and ‘The Hypocrisy of American Slavery”; and
Whereas, In 2013, Congress installed a statue to commemorate Frederick Douglass at the United States Capitol in Emancipation Hall; now, therefore, be it
Resolved by the Senate, That the members of this legislative body recognize February 2018, as the Bicentennial of Frederick Douglass.
