The North Star

Category: Friends of Labor

At this location in 1847, abolitionist Frederick Douglass began to publish The North Star, a weekly whose masthead declared "Right is of no sex, Truth is of no color." In 1851, the paper merged with the Liberty Party Paper (published in Syracuse); the renamed Frederick Douglass's Paper (with the motto "All Rights for All") was published weekly through 1860, then monthly through 1863. Douglass advocated on behalf of wage workers, urged them to organize, and criticized trade unions that refused to organize black workers or to let them work in shops with white workers. In an address on September 24, 1883 Douglass declared that “The cause of Negro workers is one with the labor classes all over the world. The labor unions of this country should not throw away this colored element of strength. It is a great mistake for any class of laborers to isolate itself and thus weaken the bond of brotherhood between those on whom the burden and hardships of labor fall.”