An African American organizer, she helped form and lead multiple committees and clubs in Chicago and the West.
[1] Douglas traveled to Kansas near the end of the American Civil War, where she took up teaching freedmen and women, who had recently escaped slavery.
Douglas was born in 1840 to free African Americans Alfred and Maria Steele, whose middle-class status enabled them to give her a good education.
[3] Douglas was a staunch supporter of black participation for the North in the Civil War and her husband H. Ford served in the 95th Illinois Regiment.
"[6] Douglas also traveled with fellow abolitionists and Civil War proponents Mary Ann Shadd and Frances Harper, among others, to encourage enlistment and to also raise funds for black Canadian settlements.