One of the most important Civil Rights speeches in history was given in Illinois yet few people know that Frederick Douglass visited the Prairie State. Not long after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, this activist and former slave made his way to our capital city to deliver one of the most important speeches in history.

Born a slave in Maryland in 1818, Frederick Douglass is known for his accomplishments as a self-educated man who emancipated himself at the age of 20. He became a vocal civil rights leader who started his own newspaper.
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Douglass is famous for his speeches and autobiography as well as many works of poetry.
Douglass visited with Abraham Lincoln prior to his election to help construct a plan for emancipating all slaves and ending the Civil War.
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Lincoln and Douglass were on the same page, but about a year into his presidency, Lincoln was assassinated and Andrew Johnson became president. He was reluctant to enforce ratifying the 13th Amendment and helping black citizens, so Douglass visited with him at the White House in 1866.
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Historically, the meeting did not go well. The men were opposed and saw the issue from different perspectives. Johnson believed that fighting for the right of black people would lead to a race war while Douglass believed the opposite was true. He was certain that sitting still and doing nothing would ultimately lead to said war.

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Days after meeting with the president, Douglass traveled to Springfield, Illinois where he gave speeches on the anniversary of Lincoln's assassination. The first addressed the former president's murder and its aftermath.
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The second speech addressed Reconstruction and echoed one of the final addresses that Lincoln himself had given about the state of the nation and how it related to slavery. In it, Douglass bashed the man responsible for letting states decide when to ratify their amendments.
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Overall, the lectures were well received and put Douglass in a positive light while also uplifting black people as a whole as the presence of an eloquently-spoken black man was foreign to most white people and began to change their perspectives.
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Douglass gave several more speeches and lectures throughout the state including in Bloomington, Galesburg, and Ottawa before continuing on to other states.
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For more like this, check out 13 unforgettable historical events that happened in Illinois.

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