Rosetta Douglass

Rosetta Douglass-Sprague (June 24, 1839 – November 25, 1906) was an American teacher and activist. She was a founding member of the National Association for Colored Women. Her parents were Anna Murray Douglass and Frederick Douglass.

Early life and education Rosetta was born to Anna Murray-Douglass and Frederick Douglass in 1839, in New Bedford, Massachusetts. She was the eldest of five children, with her younger siblings being Lewis Henry Douglass, Frederick Douglass Jr., Charles Remond Douglass, and Annie Douglass (died at the age of ten).

When she was five, she moved with her parents to Lynn, Massachusetts. She had seven children (including Fredericka Douglass Sprague Perry), and many grandchildren.

Rosetta was a critical thinker like her father, but struggled against the demands of gender roles during her time.

She wrote “The galling chain and merciless lash were the instruments used to accomplish humiliation and degradation of the African. Avarice was the factor in the composition of the character of a large number of white men of America that wrought such ravishes in the well-being of the African.” She also wrote, “Allow the Negro two hundred and fifty years of unselfish contact to offset the two hundred and fifty years of Caucasian selfishness, and be as assiduous in his regeneration as you were in his degradation - then judge him.”

She went on to become a founding member of the National Association for Colored Women. She died on November 25, 1906.