| Virginia Hewlett Douglass | |
| Birth Name: | Virginia Lewis Molyneaux Hewlett |
| Birth Date: | 1 June 1849 |
| Birth Place: | Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S. |
| Alias: | Virginia Lewis Molyneaux Hewlett Douglass |
| Death Place: | Washington, D.C., United States |
| Spouse: | Frederick Douglass, Jr. |
| Children: | 7 |
| Father: | Aaron Molyneaux Hewlett |
Virginia Hewlett Douglass (June 1, 1849 – December 14, 1889; Virginia Lewis Molyneaux Hewlett) was an African-American suffragist.[1] She was married to Frederick Douglass, Jr.[2]
Hewlett was born June 1, 1849, in Cambridge, Massachusetts,[3] [4] the daughter of the first African-American instructor at Harvard University (from 1859 to), Aaron Molyneaux Hewlett and physical education instructor, Virginia Josephine Lewis (c.1821–1882).[5]
On August 4, 1869, Virginia Hewlett Douglass married Frederick Douglass Jr. in Cambridge.[6] [7] Together, they had seven children, Fredrick Aaron Douglass (1870–1886), Virginia Anna Douglass (1871–1872), Lewis Emmanuel Douglass (c.1874–1875), Maud Ardell Douglass (1877–1877), Gertrude Pearl Douglass (1883–1887), Robert Smalls Douglass (1886–1910), Charles Paul Douglass (1879–1895). When her sister-in-law, Mary Elizabeth Murphy (married to Charles Remond Douglass), died in 1879, Virginia and Fredrick raised their two minor children, Charles Frederick and Joseph Henry.
In 1877, a petition for women's suffrage support by the District of Columbia African-American community was created and signed by Virginia Hewlett Douglass, Frederick Douglass, Jr., Nathan Sprague, and Rosetta Douglass Sprague.[8] [9] The petition had been part of a movement organized by National Woman Suffrage Association. On September 21, 1881, she wrote a letter to the editor of the Washington Sunday Item newspaper against school segregation and prejudice.
She died on December 14, 1889 in Washington, D.C., at the age of 40, and her death was listed as from consumption.[10] [11] [12] She was buried in Graceland Cemetery and later moved to Woodlawn Cemetery in Washington, D.C. After her death, her brother Emanuel took custody of her two minor children, Charles Paul and Robert Smalls.