Sarah Mapps Douglass

“…with one mighty effort threw from me the lethargy…and determined…to use every exertion in my power to elevate the character of my wronged and neglected race.’

 

Sarah Mapps Douglass (1806 – 1882) was an American teacher, abolitionist, writer, and public speaker. Her painted images on her written letters to other women may be the first or earliest surviving examples of signed paintings by a black American woman.

Sarah was born in Philadelphia to a well-known abolitionist Quaker family. Her mother was a teacher and her grandfather, Cyrus, was one of the first members of the Free African Society – an early African-American charity. Thus, Sarah was raised in a politically-active and well-educated family which may explain her later life.

In 1825, she began teaching in Philadelphia. In 1833, she taught briefly at the Free African School for Girls, before founding her own school for African-American girls. She was regarded as an excellent teacher with a great command of science and the arts and for the high standards to which she expected her pupils to work. She continued to teach until 1877.

Douglass' activism began at the age of 25 when she began collecting money to support the religious abolitionist newspaper, The Liberator. In the late 1820s, reading was increasingly seen as an important means of educating oneself, political communication, and of record keeping. Thus black literarcy societies began to form  based on the idea that for the welfare and survival of the community, individuals had join together to cultivate a sense of national identity and collective spirit and extend essential knowledge to the black community.  

In 1831, Douglass helped to form The Female Literary Association (FLA) - the first social libraries specially for African-American women.  The FLA  encouraged self-improvement through education for both the literate and illiterate and to both the free and enslaved. They believed that education was a way to challenge the white supremacist belief that Africans are intellectually inferior. They argued that education was: ‘the greatest human pursuit, because God had bestowed those powers and talents.^’  Thus, they saw it as their duty as black women to break stereotypes and fight for equal civil rights.

In an address to the Association in 1832 at a "mental feast", Douglass shared how the call to activism with the Female Literary Association came about^[14]:

One short year ago, how different were my feelings on the subject of slavery! It is true, the wail of the captive sometimes came to my ear in the midst of my happiness, and caused my heart to bleed for his wrongs; but, alas! the impression was as evanescent as the early cloud and morning dew. I had formed a little world of my own, and cared not to move beyond its precincts. But how was the scene changed when I held the oppressor lurking on the border of my peaceful home! I saw his iron hand stretched forth to seize me as his prey, and the cause of the slave became my own. I started up, and with one mighty effort threw from me the lethargy which had covered me as a mantle for years; and determined, by the help of the Almighty, to use every exertion in my power to elevate the character of my wronged and neglected race.

She and her mother founded the bi-racial Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society in 1833. Their aim was the total abolition of slavery – with no compensation given to slaveholders and equal rights given to the black community: their duty "as professing Christians [is] to manifest [their] abhorrence of the flagrant injustice and deep sin of slavery by united and vigorous exertions". 

Membership in the society was open to any woman who subscribed to these views. This Society circulated (and produced) abolitionist literature, established a small black school, and campaigned for a boycott of any goods manufactured by slavery.

From 1853 to 1877, Douglass studied anatomy, female health, and hygiene. She was the first African-American woman to study at the Female Medical College of Pennsylvania.This work inspired her to give public lectures to African-American women on issues such as physiology and hygiene.  

In 1855 she married William Douglass, a black rector with nine children. After he passed away in 1861, she resumed her teaching and activism full-time. She died in 1882.

Sarah is another example of an intersectional icon – who used both her feminist and abolitionist principles and her privileged status as a wealthy and educated black woman for the advancement of the rights of both women and the free and enslaved black community. Sarah Mapps Douglas’ quote on shaking off her apathy in favour of a life of activism strikes a tone now when the idea of anti-racism and white silence is ever more prevalent in social discourse. I first learnt about Sarah during an interfaith International Woman's Day talk held by Interfaith Scotland. Her belief in the power of education as a means of bettering and empowering oneself and society is one that I strongly relate to and support, and her efforts at both are valiant, especially at a time when even white women struggled to receive recognition or power in the social or political spheres.