Creating the United States
{
object_type: 'Exhibit Item',embed_type: 'image',embed_detail: 'http://www.myloc.gov/_assets/Exhibitions/creatingtheus/DeclarationofIndependence/DeclarationLegacy/Assets/us0112_02_thumb.jpg',embed_alt: 'A Call to Arms for African Americans',thumbnail: {url: 'http://www.myloc.gov/_assets/Exhibitions/creatingtheus/DeclarationofIndependence/DeclarationLegacy/Assets/us0112_02_thumb.jpg',alt: 'A Call to Arms for African Americans',height: '66',width: '125'}
}
A Call to Arms for African Americans
Frederick Douglass (1818–1895), a former slave and an outspoken leader of the Abolitionist Movement, called on African Americans to join the Union Army to fight for the freedom of all slaves and to preserve the federal Union in a March 2, 1863, speech at Rochester, New York. In the months after the Emancipation Proclamation, thousands of African Americans joined the fight against the Confederate States of America.