Q 01/05

Frederick Douglass was born with his mother Harriet's surname; what was it?

A) Auld

B) Anthony

C) Bailey

D) Johnson

Answer · why

C) Bailey

Bailey: his mother named him Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey. He fled Baltimore in 1838 as 'Stanley', became 'Johnson' in New York, and only then...

Q 02/05

In which state was Douglass born into slavery?

A) North Carolina

B) Delaware

C) Virginia

D) Maryland

Answer · why

D) Maryland

Maryland, on the Eastern Shore of Chesapeake Bay. His mother was hired out twelve miles away and could visit only by walking there at night after a da...

Q 03/05

Douglass never knew his birth date; which day did he choose to celebrate it, in memory of his mother?

A) New Year's Day

B) Valentine's Day

C) Independence Day

D) Christmas Day

Answer · why

B) Valentine's Day

Valentine's Day. On the last night he saw his mother she took him on her knee and gave him a ginger cake shaped like a heart, and he is said to have p...

Q 04/05

Who began teaching the young Douglass his ABCs in Baltimore, until her husband ordered her to stop?

A) Sophia Auld

B) Betsy Bailey

C) Lucretia Auld

D) Harriet Bailey

Answer · why

A) Sophia Auld

Sophia Auld. Her husband forbade the lessons, warning that reading would 'forever unfit him to be a slave'; the boy took that as proof that literacy w...

Q 05/05

At about twelve, Douglass bought which book of speeches and dialogues that shaped his case against slavery?

A) The Columbian Orator

B) The American Speaker

C) Webster's Spelling Book

D) Poor Richard's Almanack

Answer · why

A) The Columbian Orator

The Columbian Orator, a popular schoolbook he bought for 50 cents earned shining boots. In one dialogue an enslaved man out-argues his master and is s...