The lone African-American participant at the inaugural Convention on Women's Rights was Douglass

Douglass was the lone African-American participant at the inaugural Convention on Women's Rights that was held in Seneca Falls, New York, in 1848. After the convention, he expresses the North Star's viewpoint and lends credibility to it by saying, "We think that women are justly entitled to all that we ask for males." The first phrase in the newspaper's slogan, "the freedom to be without gender," is reiterated in this letter, which was sent a week after the congress.

Douglass broke with the Stanton-led wing of the women's rights movement after the Civil War, during the battle over the 15th Amendment, which would have granted African males the right to vote. Douglass backed the amendment that would give black males the right to vote. Stanton disagreed with the 15th Amendment because it restricted the spread of suffrage to black males. She also believed that if it were to pass, the fight for women's voting rights would be put off for decades. Stanton opposed any legislation that divided the issues because she believed that American women and black men should unite to fight for equal access to the vote. Both Douglass and Stanton were aware that there was not yet sufficient male support for the right of women to vote, but that in the late 1860s, an amendment granting black males the right to vote may pass. Stanton hoped that by linking women's suffrage with that of black men, her cause would be successful.

According to Douglass, there was hardly enough support for black men's suffrage, making such a tactic extremely hazardous. He was concerned that tying the struggle of black males to that of women's suffrage would lead to defeat for both. Douglass said that white women at least indirectly possessed the right to vote because of their social ties to fathers, husbands, and brothers, which had already given them power. He felt that if black males had the right to vote, black women would experience the same level of empowerment as white women. Douglass informed the American ladies that he had never opposed women's voting rights.

Together with other female activists, including Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and others, he co-founded the American Equal Rights Association in 1866 to promote universal suffrage.