Amna: Frederick Douglass was
once a fugitive from slavery who
was aided by friends in a
dangerous escape.
He went from being on the run to
becoming one of the most
influential Americans of the
19th century.
Pamela Watts of Rhode Island pbs
weekly has douglass'story as he
took his first steps to freedom.
Pamela: Throughout his life,
from the time he gains freedom,
he works constantly for freedom
and for freedom for his brothers
and sisters, the
African-American community.
He spoke out for women.
At one point he is in England
and how important it is for the
English to take their foot off
the neck of the Irish.
He was somebody who worked all
the time for equality.
That early civil rights activist
was born a southern slave.
Frederick Augustus Washington
Bailey later changed his name to
Frederick douglasss to elude
capture.
He escaped bondage, arriving in
Newport in 1838.
Historian Lee Blake explains why
he could not stay there.
>> Because Newport, Rhode Island
is a slave state.
One thing people forget is how
involved Rhode Island was in the
slave trade.
Many slave ships that came into
the United States came into
Rhode Island.
Pamela: But Douglass and his new
wife do find safe harbor briefly
in Newport with the free black
family of Isaac rice.
The rice homestead still stands
on the corner of Thomas and
Williams streets and was a
station on the underground
railroad.
The douglasses were whisked by
stagecoach to New Bedford.
Blake, who is president of the
New Bedford historic society,
says it is to this whaling city
neighborhood, now the historic
district abolition rope, that
Douglass is sent.
He has his first taste of life
as a free man in the home of
Nathan and polly Johnson.
What road did -- what role did
this house have in shaping
Frederick Douglas's life?
>> Nathan and polly Johnson,
African-American entrepreneurs,
were part of the underground
railroad.
When Anna and Frederick come
here, they have just been
married 3, 4 days, but Frederick
is 20 years old.
We are so used to seeing
Frederick douglassas an elde
statesman, we forget he has a
foundation story.
This house is part of the
foundation story.
Pamela: The Johnson house sits
side-by-side with those of
Quaker families.
Anti-slavery quakers were active
in the whaling trade and
employed many African-Americans.
>> New Bedford is a unique place
at that time.
New Bedford is a bustling
whaling port but also a place
with a large free black
population.
Massachusetts ends slavery in
1783, so people here are free
and are able to go about their
business as citizens.
>> Douglass finds work on the
docks in New Bedford and marvels
at the opportunity in the
seaport town.
>> He is able to vote here.
Voting was not segregated.
He paid his poll tax, $1.50, and
in the 1840's he is voting.
In New Bedford,
African-Americans were running
for elections.
New Bedford teaches him the
possibility and hope of what
freedom might really look like
if people were equal.
Pamela: Douglass is also able to
attend church and act as a
minister, where he learns he
needs to speak up.
>> He talks about getting the
sacrament in one of the churches
where he is sitting in the back
of the po, he gets the sacrament
last, and he writes about that.
He writes about how Christians
were hypocritical.
Pamela: As good as it was here,
it wasn't perfect.
>> Right.
He is also able to write and put
editorials in the paper.
He develops a voice here which
he would not have developed
anywhere else.
Pamela: That voice brings an
invitation to speak in
nantucket, a transformational
moment when the audience meets
the elegant, literate Douglass.
>> He is very hesitant but he
speaks and talks about his life
as an enslaved person.
At that time many abolitionists
had never met a slave.
So Douglass becomes really
important because he can
communicate a message of what it
was like to be enslaved.
He would talk about his
relationship with his mother who
he only saw a couple times his
whole life and the beatings that
he had.
Pamela: Blake said Douglass not
only gave a powerful
first-person voice to the evils
of slavery, he gave a face, an
imposing intellectually gifted
leader.
>> Douglass had a rationale
about that.
Douglass wrote essays about
photography.
He thought photography was so
important, that photography was
going to show white Americans
that the humanity of black
people was the same as their
humanity.
He also was looking at the idea
that at the time white people
were making sure there were
stereotypes of black people.
They would do pictures that were
demeaning that depicted them as
less intelligent.
He was pushing the idea that
that wasn't true.
Pamela: Blake said Douglass and
his family lived in New Bedford
for five years.
He would return many times to
visit.
Across the street from the
Johnson home, construction is
underway on abolition row park
and at its heart will be a
statue of Frederick Douglass.
The statue depicts Douglass and
his waterfront working clothes
and will bear his quote, truth,
justice, liberty, and humanity
will ultimately prevail, the
same words inscribed on the
senate chamber walls of the
Massachusetts state house.
I am Pamela Watts in new