Jaybird's Jottings

Founding Fathers and Slavery

Two new books, both involving the highest law in the land, have been published.

I haven’t read either one, but it seems to me, after reading their summaries, they show us, in a nutshell, a critical challenge we face going forward in the way we look at great Americans.   

Slave-holding Presidents have already come under scrutiny, especially Washington and Jefferson, who each owned more than 200 enslaved humans.  

The juxtaposition of these two books points the spotlight to the Supreme Court.  

By all accounts, Chief Justice John Marshall stands proudly on the pantheon of Founding Fathers.  The summary for Joel Richard Paul’s new book,“Without Precedent: Chief Justice John Marshall and His Times,” indicates a similar admiration:

Without Precedent is the engrossing account of the life and times of this exceptional man, who with cunning, imagination, and grace shaped America's future as he held together the Supreme Court, the Constitution, and the country itself.

On the other hand, Marshall comes under intense scrutiny in the book, "Supreme Injustice, Slavery in the Nation’s Highest Court" by Paul Finkelman.

In Supreme Injustice, the distinguished legal historian Paul Finkelman establishes an authoritative account of each justice’s proslavery position, the reasoning behind his opposition to black freedom, and the incentives created by circumstances in his private life.  Finkelman uses census data and other sources to reveal that Justice Marshall aggressively bought and sold slaves throughout his lifetime—a fact that biographers have ignored. 

 

How do we process this?   

Should we lessen our admiration for these men or not?   

Is it right or wrong to pass judgements all these years later?

Is this part of the need for reconciliation?

These are not just topics for everyday Americans to discuss (or avoid) between sips of coffee.    Public memory always needs to be reevaluated.    It’s a tough wrangle, but we need to face and meet the challenge of understanding our complicated past.   

 

 

Frederick Douglass Bicentennial: Memory and Commemoration

As a slave and even as a free African American, Frederick Douglass faced many challenges in his life.   All the things we take for granted were not a given for him.   He only had an idea of who his father was, and even his birthday was a mystery.

Articles this month have touched on the fact the day of his birth is not known.   As biographer Dickson J. Preston tells us, Douglass chose February 14.  

Douglass recalled that his mother, on her last visit to him, had called him her Valentine and had given him a heart-shaped ginger cake.   

Not talked about and no doubt long forgotten are discussions about his birth year. 

Historians and journalists have accepted 1818.  But did you know his 100th anniversary was commemorated in 1917?

Dickson J. Preston covers the 1817/1818 topic in his book, “Young Frederick Douglass” (1985).  He tells us Douglass was uncertain his whole life about what year he was born.  Sometimes he wrote 1817, sometimes 1818.

It was Preston who dug in and found that 1818 is much more likely than 1817. 

He writes:

In fact, there is a written record of his birth.  It appears in the tables complied by Aaron Anthony and others that provide genealogical information on the slaves owned by the Anthony family.…an 1818 birth date is consistent with known facts about Frederick’s early life…  the time sequence in which Harriet Bailey’s other children were born places Frederick’s birth logically in 1818.

 

As noted, Douglass’s biographers have accepted 1818 as his birth year, but it is interesting that newspapers have used 1817 as recently as 2015.

There have been a good number of events so far this year for the Bicentennial of his birth.  The 100th anniversary, commemorated in 1917, also gave support for the memory of Douglass.

• In Boston, a public square in the Roxbury district was dedicated.
• Byron Gunner of New York, and William Monroe Trotter of Boston wrote an inspiring message in the Chicago Broad Ax.   They asked for not only a nationwide celebration and commemoration, but also action from “Equal Rights Leagues and Committees for the Cause of Equal Rights.”
• The Broad Ax also spilled ink on a full page article that pointed out:

  “the Lincoln and Douglass celebration of the last week has awakened the hearts of the vast majority of the American people a greater love for liberty and justice.” Joseph Douglass, the grandson of Douglass, was scheduled to speak." 

• The Washington Bee published a letter of appeal from Marie A.D. Madre, President of the Federation of Colored Women’s Clubs of Washington.   She parlayed the 100th anniversary by asking his home be saved.
• The Bee also reported on a Douglass Centenary Celebration at Bethel Literary.  The Afro American History Story-Telling sponsored the event which featured an oral history by Charles Douglass. 

As one can imagine, finding Douglass events in the South was an exercise in futility.   It’s not that there weren’t African Americans living there.  In fact, before the "Great Migration" took place, more than 90 percent of the black population lived in Southern states.  

But this was a period of time that would have made Douglass both mad and sad.   "Jim Crow" was a way of life in the former Confederate states and lynchings horrified the African American community. 

Coverage of the 150th anniversary for Douglas was much better in 1967 with full length articles providing primers of his life.   The Postal Service released a new 25 cent stamp honoring Douglass.

Benjamin Forgey wrote an article in The Washington Evening Star that told the story of Warren M. Robbins.  Formerly a cultural attache with the State Department, Robbins acquired 316 A Street, NE in 1963, the townhouse near the Capital where Douglass lived when he first settled down in Washington.

For the 150th anniversary, he put on display various Douglass memorabilia, African sculpture, and educational exhibits for “Negro History Week” at the museum in the house.   The museum then became the Frederick Douglass Institute of Negro Arts and History.   Robbins went on to found (1964) the Museum of African Art, the forerunner to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African Art.   He passed away in 2008.

In 1967, an advisory board with the Department of Interior also recommended the completion of Cedar Hill and included it in the National Park System. 

We don’t know, and probably will never know the day Frederick Douglass was born.

But that’s all right. This great American left us a lifetime’s worth of work that continues to inspire us.   It’s our job to keep remembering what he fought for and against, and to keep working to fight the forms of prejudice and racism we face today.    

 

 

Frederick Douglass Bicentennial: Newspaper Coverage

In the book, “Picturing Frederick Douglass,” the reader learns that authors John Stauffer, Zoe Trodd and Celeste-Marie Bernier, found 160 different photographs of Douglass.  As best as can be determined, this makes him the most photographed individual of the 19th century.

That got us to thinking —  Who received the most newspaper coverage during that timeframe?  Maybe not Douglass, but the depth and breadth of his work suggests he would rank high on such a list.

Any such searches is beyond our budget, but we did search the newspapers at the GenealogyBank website and found more than 46,000 for Douglass.  We also searched the Library of Congress search engine.   Not all of the hits are articles on Douglass, but one sees a consistent pattern of coverage in every year after 1841.

The first hit is September 7, 1841 in the Massachusetts Herald.   Douglass had escaped three years earlier, and was living in New Bedford.   He began to speak on behalf of the  Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society.   You didn’t have to be a seasoned editor to know a black man soaring high with oratory and telling stories of his bondage was news.   Then again, it’s likely some publishers were not convinced he was a slave, and stayed away from covering him.

Douglass was a draw for not only what he had to say, but how he said it. In Salem, a “very large meeting” of abolitionists was held at Mechanic Hall.  An article wrote:

“The most wonderful performance of the evening was the address of Frederick Douglass, himself a slave only four years ago!  He was a living, speaking, startling proof of the folly, absurdity and inconsistency (to say nothing worse) of slavery.  Fluent, graceful, eloquent, shrews, sarcastic… he seemed to move the audience at will. 

Of course, south of the Mason-Dixon line, the press was not as good.   The Baltimore Sun (June 6, 1843) wrote that the appearance of Douglass, George Latimer and Charles Remond to greet President Tyler in Boston and asked him to emancipate slaves was “an Outrage.”

The Massachusetts and northeast newspapers continued to report favorably on Douglass.   The occasional report from a Southern newspaper continued to disparage him or defend slavery.  

Alexandrians reading the Gazette got one of their first looks at Douglass in an article on November 21, 1846.  A reporter with the National Intelligencer was covering affairs in England.  A society was forming, called the Evangelical Association.

Some firebrand of a speaker, however, has marred the project by introducing the subject of slavery.  A colored man calling himself Frederick Douglass, and representing himself to be a runaway slave, has been lecturing about the country.   

After attending a Douglass speech, another report in the Richmond Times (May 18, 1847), wrote:

I would be willing to see the South united as a band of brothers, and as one man.   These fanatics actually avow, I am told, that they are organizing for the purpose of aiming a blow at this institution.

Douglass was in the news for the entirety of his post-escape life.  He received favorable coverage in newspapers such as the Richmond Planet.   The Library of Congress tells us it was founded in 1882 by thirteen former slaves.   

Coverage of Douglass spiked in 1848.  That summer the fiery abolitionist attended the first Women’s Rights Convention at Seneca Falls, New York.   Douglass put the full measure of his voice in support of woman suffrage.

In an issue of the North Star published shortly after the convention, Douglass wrote,

In respect to political rights, we hold woman to be justly entitled to all we claim for man. We go farther, and express our conviction that all political rights which it is expedient for man to exercise, it is equally so for women.,,, Our doctrine is, that “Right is of no sex.”

Quite predictably, the Civil War years saw less coverage of Douglass.  Nevertheless, he continued to make the news.   In addition to maintaining a robust lecture schedule, Douglass recruited soldiers for the 54th Massachusetts Infantry.   He also paid a visit to the White House in August, 1863.

With the war over, Douglass continued to tour with his speaking engagements.  His focus shifted to new roles such as black suffragist and reformer.  With these new platforms, he stayed in the news.

When Douglass moved to Washington in 1872, his numbers increased two fold.  He wrote headlines himself as the founder and editor of the New National Era in the city.

In his later years, Douglass continued to make the news during the post-Reconstruction years.  With African Americans losing the gains they had made after the war, he continued to speak and lecture.   His speeches included the Civil Rights Case (1883), the Race Problem (1890) and Self Made Men (1894).

Douglass also stayed in the news when he was appointed U.S. Marshall of the District of Columbia in 1877, and his purchase of Cedar Hill in 1878.   

Sad news came in 1882 when his wife Anna passed away.   Saddest of all for his supporters was the paper of February 21, 1895.   A heart attack had taken away the Lion of Anacostia at his home overlooking the marbled institutions he had fought all of his adult life.

Frederick Douglass did his work using many stages.  It’s hard to know if he made certain moves in order to continue to stay in the ink.  Some might conclude Douglass was cynical in his efforts this way.  

I would disagree.   

If I could borrow a thought from the Great One, I’d say there was no Douglass problem.  The problem was racism.  Day after day, week after week, year after year, he kept fighting to identify, shame and end it.

The news coverage of Douglass filled volumes, gave him the attention his causes needed, and tells us about critical times in our nation’s history.  The combination of the photographs, the press coverage and the words he spoke and wrote, helped him considerably in the fight for civil rights.   He was not unique this way, but he stands tall among the giants, and during his time, Douglass might have been the greatest of them all.

 

Frederick Douglass Bicentennial: Wreath-Laying in Easton

Frederick Douglass must have had mixed feelings about Easton, Maryland.   In a letter he wrote later in his life, Douglass praised the Eastern shore town.   

On the other hand, Easton was where an enslaved Douglass was practically dragged to and jailed after a failed escape attempt near St. Michaels (April, 1836).   Slave traders at the Easton jail eyed their prey like vultures.  Douglass probably would have been sold and shipped South, if not for Thomas Auld, who sent him back to Baltimore instead.

Nevertheless, good feelings were on hand today in the seat of Talbot County, a town hugging Route 50 and holding some folks who must have been proud to know Douglass was born about eight miles away.   

On his birthday and steps from the site of the jail where Douglass awaited his fate, the Frederick Douglass Honor Society held a Bicentennial Wreath Laying Ceremony for the Bicentennial.  

Descendants of Douglass had the honors, which took place at the Talbot County Court House.  The county erected a statue of Douglass there in 2011.

Maryland’s Lieutenant Governor Boyd Rutherford and Lyndra Pratt Marshall gave prepared remarks.

I was not able to stay, but took in the front lawn of the courthouse.  I could see three objects of memory, situated in a prominent place that no visitor could ignore.  

The trio are a historic sign for the Talbot Resolves, a Confederate memorial statue, and the statue for Douglass.

I was struck how, with these three, we see a cogent slice of American history -  the Revolutionary War, the Civil War and Reconstruction.   

My own thought is that no one person could ever fully represent any one period.  But if one person is given that task, this great American sure does fit the bill.

Happy 200th Mr. Douglass.

 

 

 

Black History Month: Arlington Public Library

Great Job Arlington Public Library!

 

 

Events

• February 6 - Stories from Arlington's Oldest African American Community at the Westover Branch Library
• February 21 - Family Read-In at the Columbia Pike Branch Library
• February 22 - Black Music Matters at the Aurora Hills Branch Library
• February 1-28 - "Who Am I?" Black History Trivia at the Aurora Hills Branch Library

See their website for more!

Frederick Douglass Bicentennial: Baltimore

Baltimore was the place to be today yesterday for the bicentennial of Frederick Douglass’s birthday.  Fell’s Point, famous for its summer bars and immigrant-rich past, is where The Great One spent most of his formative years and made his dash for freedom in 1838.

We stopped there first, checking out The Frederick Douglass-Isaac Myers Maritime Park.   As a lad and as a caulker, Douglass knew this shoreline like the back of his hand.  Slavery still imprisoned him, but the urban life here treated him better than on the plantation on the Eastern Shore.

Our next stop was the Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African-American History and Culture.   Its conveniently located a Babe Ruth swat from the Inner Harbor.   Tummies growling and too lazy to pull out our phones, we asked where to grab a bite to eat.

Miss Shirley’s Cafe, across the street was recommended.  Twenty minute wait, we learned.   Deciding we were just not that into standing around that long, we hurried over to the landmark Barnes and Noble for coffee and muffins.  

Back at the museum, a crowd of about 200, which no doubt consisted of a sprinkling of devotees of Douglassiana, gathered to watch a presentation by Dr. Lawrence Jackson.  A son of Baltimore and Professor at Johns Hopkins University he led some of his students, who scoured archives, newspapers and census records to recreate some of the footsteps Douglass took at Fell’s Point.  

 

 

 

Most of the folks in the audience then stepped over to the next room to hear Michael Crutcher recreate a talk by Douglass.  

Anyone else speaking with such a slow cadence would draw yawns and impatient responses.  We listened with rapt attention and focus as he spoke about being taking away from his mother, and then his grandmother, being beaten by a slave breaker, learning to read and write in Baltimore, and ultimately slipping away on a train bound for freedom.

 

With the rain coming down, we then made our own dash, pausing to take a photo of the beautiful mural facing Presidents Street.   

These sons and daughters of Maryland will tell you uplifting stories that will make you proud to be an American.   On this day, and despite the cold and gloomy weather, the story of one of them, and one of our greatest citizens, shined the brightest.

 

Frederick Douglass Bicentennial: His Autobiographies

Frederick Douglass’s greatest weapon in his war on slavery and racism were his speeches.   Six feet tall, a thundering voice, and driven by a reformer’s drive and spirit, he drew crowds from all around.

Douglass also packed a punch with his quill pen, authoring three autobiographies  — Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave (1845), My Bondage and My Freedom (1855) and Life and Times of Frederick Douglass (1881).

I created a word cloud using the books Douglass wrote.    We also provide some information on them.

 

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave (1845)

Douglass was a busy man in the winter of 1844-1845.   Having traveled extensively on the lecture circuit in 1842 and 1843, he had some time for the birth of his fourth child.   Encouraged by William Lloyd Garrison and Wendall Philips, Douglass sat down and penned his first memoir.   As the Frederick Douglass Heritage website tells us, he wrote it as a means to prove he was indeed a fugitive slave.  

Written at his home in Lynn, the book was published in Boston.   Narrative would go on to be his bestseller of the three.   

The preface by Garrison, a giant himself in the struggle for civil rights, gave the book an added boost of authority.

L. Diane Barnes tells us the book was “a masterful piece of antislavery propaganda.”   Douglass “quieted his doubters.”

Douglass was still a wanted man in Maryland so he got on a ship and headed for England and Ireland where he and his speeches were well-received.

According to World Catalog, there are 70 different editions of Narrative.  Publication stopped in 1846 and picked back up in 1963.    Another gap occurred between 1967 and 1988.

Long out of the eye of the newspapers, Douglass climbed back up in the 1960s.   In 1960, the National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs announced they would restore Cedar Hill.  It’s interesting that the Post’s description of Douglass was, “noted Negro abolitionist of the pre-Civil War era.”

Benjamin Quarles helped the rescue effort with a piece in the Post’s April 16, 1961 edition.   

With a brilliant conclusion, Quarles wrote:

During the first  half of his public life, Douglass worked for an America in which all men would be endowed with liberty.   During the second half, he worked for an America in which all men would be treated as having been created equal.

Quarles edited one of the reprints.  In the introduction, he wrote that the publication of the book in 1845 was for Douglass, “a passport to prominence for a twenty-seven-year-old Negro.”  Quarles also tells us the New York Tribune had praised it -- “The most striking quality is Douglass’ ability to mingle incident with argument.”

As testimony to the thirst we still have for Douglass’s story, Narrative is currently ranked number fourteen at Amazon’s Best Sellers for African American and Black Biographies.   Obama, Coates and Angelou and Baldwin are giving him good company.

 

My Bondage and My Freedom (1855)

Douglass had another ten years of experience when he penned this one at his home in Rochester.   His influence grew as a seasoned speaker and editor of the North Star, a weekly publication he created.   Douglass had also lent a strong hand to the movement for Women’s Rights.  Douglass had also written "The Heroic Slave," a novella in 1852.

Bondage and Freedom was a whopper, coming in at over 400 pages.  “Documenting the American South” tells us the book “significantly revises key portions of Narrative, and extends the story of his life to include his experiences as a traveling lecturer.   

Dr. James McCune Smith wrote the Introduction.  Smith was the first African American to hold a medical degree and rubbed shoulders with Douglass on the American Anti-Slavery Society.   Born a slave himself, he became free when New York abolished slavery in 1827.

David Blight tells us My Bondage and My Freedom had good timing.   Harriet Beecher Stowe’s best selling “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” had been published two years earlier.    Blight writes: 

Slavery was on the minds of Americans more than any earlier time.   Douglass wrote this version of the story of his own conflicted life just as the nation began to collapse into violence over slavery and fears of the possible break up of the Union boiled over as never before.

 

World Catalog shows 40 print editions.   Like Narrative, there was a gap between the late 1880s and 1960s.   Interestingly enough, Bondage and Freedom did not have the 1967-1988 gap like Narrative.   It has editions up to 1972 and a restart in 1983.

In 1969, Dover published a new edition with a new introduction by Philip S. Foner.  He pointed out that Douglass’s stature had been increasingly noted by historians in recent years.   Ebony magazine published a special edition in 1963 for the centennial of the Emancipation Proclamation.   A portrait of Douglass was on the cover.    In 1968, Life magazine also put Douglass on the cover a special issue.

Foner tells us "My Bondage and My Freedom," like Narrative, “is remarkably accurate as to dates, places, people, and events.”

 

Life and Times of Frederick Douglass (1881 and 1892)

Douglass was 63 years old when he wrote his final autobiography.   Although perhaps not as fierce, his fiery passion still burned.  Ottilia Assing, a German-American journalist encouraged him to write this one.   Douglass had moved from Rochester to Washington in 1878.    

Life and Times did not sell well, nor did its 1892 reprint.   World Catalog shows 59 print editions with a large gap from 1895 to 1962.   

Douglass’s 1892 edition of Life and Times, which is considered by some as his fourth book, is divided into three sections.  The third, “His Complete History to the Present Time,” was new material.

Douglass must have been torn between the hope he expressed about the progress of African Americans -- "it is the faith of my soul that [a] brighter and better day will yet come" -- and the knowledge that the former Confederate states were winning Reconstruction. 

Documenting the South tells us:

Douglass excoriates the U.S. Supreme Court for its ruling on the Civil Rights Cases of 1883, which hold that Congress lacks the authority to enforce the Fourteenth Amendment against private parties and individuals. "[T]his decision has inflicted a heavy calamity upon [African Americans]," Douglass writes.

In 1895, Frederick Douglass knew his life was well past its zenith, and that the Good Lord was waiting.   He left us that February, but not empty-handed.   Looking up to think about our what is happening in our time, we continue to read, appreciate and be moved by the words Douglass wrote about his life and times.    

 

 

Book Review

A man in the United States marries and has two daughters.   After his wife passes away, he has children out of wedlock.   The young mother is the half-sister of his deceased wife.   

The man then becomes Vice-President of the United States.   While in that office, he continues to have relations with the unwed woman.   They have three more children.

The man then becomes President of the United States.   He has three more children with the same woman, still out of wedlock.   

The President serves for two terms.   Many consider him to be one of our greatest Presidents.

The man in this story is Thomas Jefferson and the woman is Sally Hemings, one of his slaves.  Not everyone believes that to be true, but the preponderance of evidence points to Jefferson as the father of seven children with Hemings.  

None of this is new, but Catherine Kerrison has given us an extraordinary new chapter in the story.  Her new book, "Jefferson’s Daughters, Three Sisters, White and Black, in a Young America," tells the fascinating story of Jefferson’s two daughters (Martha and Maria) with his wife, and Harriet Hemings, a daughter of Jefferson and Hemings.

Any further comments would likely be a spoiler, so I will just say I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book.  The author’s PhD work as a professor of colonial, Revolutionary American, and women’s history gives the rock solid background needed to tell the story in full.   Her exhaustive research on Harriet Hemings is worthy of some kind of an award.    

This book compels the reader to repeatedly pause and try and grasp all the different ramifications for these three sisters, and especially Harriet.   One will feel compassion for Jefferson, who suffered tragic family losses.  On the other hand, one will question his character, and perhaps even wonder if we have ranked him too as a great American.

White men have received a lot of attention with historians.   We are now entering a time when authors are looking past that horizon.  People like Harriett are emerging as self-made individuals who overcame obstacles and give us new examples of what it meant to try and find life, liberty and freedom in the early years of the republic.    

This terrific book includes a family tree.  Keep it, and an avoidance of pre-conceptions of race and identity, and you will be better equipped to understand this fantastic true story.

 

Frederick Douglass Bicentennial: Hopes for a Historical Marker

Many thanks to the Alexandria Gazette for publishing my Letter to the Editor.

My full article on Douglass’s speech in Alexandria, "The Lion's Last Roar," gives more info.

Letter to the Editor

February 14, 2018, marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of Frederick Douglass.  The fiery orator gave hundreds of speeches during a lifetime as a fugitive slave turned abolitionist, author, and publisher.  

On September 24, 1894, just five months before taking his last breath at his Cedar Hill home in Washington, DC,  Douglass gave one of his last speeches at Lannon’s Opera House in Alexandria.  

The occasion was the city’s Emancipation Day celebration.   In some cities and towns, these annual jubilees had a long and continuous history.  In Alexandria, Emancipation Day celebrations began in 1889 and lasted for over a decade before dying out in the early part of the 20^th-century.

Both floors of Lannon’s Opera House, whose site is the southwest corner of King and Pitt streets, were packed for Douglass’s speech.    None of the newspapers printed the entirety of his speech, but some pointed out his message centered on “the Negro problem.”  

The elder statesman expressed his dislike of that term, noting it was prejudicial against black Americans.   A year earlier the “Lion of Anacostia” had spoken at the World Columbian Exposition in Chicago.  He said, “There is no Negro problem.  The problem is whether the American people have loyalty enough, honor enough, patriotism enough, to live up to their own Constitution.”

2018 will see many commemorative events for the bicentennial of the birth of Frederick Douglass.  Here in Alexandria, we should erect a historical marker commemorating the man and his speech.   Any day this year would be appropriate, while September 24 would be the most fitting.   That’s when the “Lion of Anacostia” gave one of his last roars.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Frederick Douglass Bicentennial: Books

It’s not easy to crack the Top Ten in United States Best Selling Biographies right now.  Titles on Trump, Hamilton, Grant, Obama, Kennedy, and Clinton are the most popular.

Whether or not biographies of Frederick Douglass will be shooting stars this year remains to be seen.   Nevertheless, there is great anticipation.  2018 has loomed large for authors and publishers.    

We bent google to look for new books, and also took down our copies of some titles to look at their bibliographies.  We came up with our humble list that will perhaps be useful.   

At the risk of the Library of Congress blackballing us, and bucking all the advice ever given for such lists, we will order them by year of publication and book title.

 

Autobiographies

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave (1845)

My Bondage and My Freedom (1855)

Life and Times of Frederick Douglass (1881)

 

Books and Bios

Picturing Frederick Douglass: An Illustrated Biography of the Nineteenth Century's Most Photographed American.  Stauffer, John, Dr. Zoe Trodd and Dr. Celeste-Marie Bernier. 

Note: The paperback is set for February 27, 2018 and will include photographs found since the publication of the hardcover (2015).

This is an amazing contribution.  Douglass was the most photographed person in the nineteenth century and they are all here.  This book also has a lengthy Bibliography and goes way beyond a typical photo collection.   

 

Facing Frederick: The Life of Frederick Douglass, a Monumental American Man.  Bolden, Tonya. January 9.

Geared for ages 10-14.

 

Frederick Douglass: America's Prophet.  D.H. Dilbeck.  February 14. 

Don’t know anything about Dilbeck, but the publisher being The University of North Carolina Press is a good sign. He also was a finalist for the 2017 Gilder Lehman Lincoln Prize.  Feb 14 hits the bullseye for Douglass.

 

If I Survive: Frederick Douglass and Family in the Walter O. Evans Collection. Bernier, Celeste-Marie and Andrew Taylor.   September 1, 2018.

John Mueller has a terrific post on Bernier.  She has some other books coming out this year on Douglass.

 

Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom.  Blight, David.  September 2018.

Looks like this one is timed for the Emancipation Proclamation anniversary.   Look for a big time roll out and author tour.

 

Women in the World of Frederick Douglass.  Fought, Leigh, 2017.

I read this one and enjoyed it.

 

Frederick Douglass, Reformer and Statesman. Barnes, L. Diane,  2013

Excellent 200-page go to.  Part of the Routledge Historical Americans series.

 

Frederick Douglass in Washington, D.C., The Lion of Anacostia.  Mueller, John.  2012.

Never forget meeting John at a tour of St. Elizabeths.  He is a Douglass expert, very active in Anacostia, and writes a terrific blog.  

 

Giants:  The Parallel Lives of Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln.  Stauffer, John.  2008

Another one of my favorites.  Enjoyed listening to Stauffer at Politics and Prose.

 

Frederick Douglass, Selected Speeches and Writings. Foner, Philip S. 1950.

If I counted correctly, Foner chose 42 speeches (a few are listed as lectures) and 113 letters, editorials and articles.    Yuval Taylor abridged and adapted this one for the 1999 edition.  He wrote a highly-praised book himself, "I Was Born a Slave: An Anthology of Classic Slave Narratives: 1772-1849."   

 

Frederick Douglass.  Quarles, Benjamin.  1948.

 According to Amazon:

...  one of the first modern biographies of Frederick Douglas.  He devotes more time to Douglass's travels in Britain, which were undertaken after publication of the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass because he feared capture and re-enslavement.