- [Narrator] Selfies get a bad rap.
They're thought of as being for vain young people,
with their lips pursed, downward angle,
smizing, and posting to the Gram for likes.
Well, some of that is true.
But selfies are actually one of the
most important cultural movements that we've ever had.
They show the world how we see ourselves,
and that helps change how they see us, too.
But to fully understand the selfie's power,
you'd have to look at the first person
who really harnessed it,
19th century abolitionist, Frederick Douglass.
(record scratching)
No, that's Don Cheadle playing Frederick Douglass.
We're talking about this guy.
Even though there are relatively few photos
of black people from that time period,
you've probably seen a photograph of him.
There's a reason for that.
- He was the most photographed American of the 19th century,
photographed more than President Lincoln,
more than General Custer, more than Ulysses S. Grant.
- [Narrator] Obviously Douglass
never used a smartphone's camera.
He didn't even take the first self portrait.
But when it comes to choosing
how you want to be presented,
getting your face out into the public eye,
and altogether changing people's perceptions of you,
maybe an entire group of people,
there's only one person who invented
the selfie as we know it.
- When I was around five years old
is when I started to notice
that my ancestors had some importance.
- Back home three of the 13 new Frederick Douglass statues
were unveiled today.
- I would ask my classmates and my friends,
"Are you grandparents on statues?
"Are your grandparents on money?"
No.
My name is Kenneth B. Morris, Jr.
I'm the great-great-great grandson of Frederick Douglass
and great-great grandson of Booker T. Washington.
- [Narrator] Frederick Douglass
was born into slavery in Maryland,
but at the age of 20 he escaped and went on to become
one of the nation's foremost abolitionists and statesmen.
But to help end slavery he knew that he had to challenge
the insidious, racist perceptions
of the people who were enslaved.
Enter the selfie.
- You had all of this propaganda that was out there
to characterize people that were enslaved,
people of African descent, as being less than human.
And so you would see these exaggerated features,
big eyes and big lips,
making them an other to justify mistreating them,
dehumanizing them, taking away their freedom,
and Frederick would put himself right in the middle of that.
The aesthetics of his photographs,
he was always dressed to the nines.
He was a trendsetter.
His hair was looking good,
even in the style of his beard or his goatee.
At the time, the backgrounds in photography
were really ornate.
And if you look at his images
you see that they're very simple.
But he also understood that within that photograph
things had to be staged.
And so in one image you might see a table with books on it.
He wanted the focus to be on him,
and he said, "I never want to look like
"a happy, amiable, fugitive slave."
And so he's looking directly into the camera
with that steely glare, basically saying,
try to deny that I'm a man worthy of freedom
and worthy of citizenship.
- [Narrator] The other aspect of selfie culture
that Douglass understood, social media.
For that time period, that meant printing these photos
and getting them seen by as many people as possible.
- He would give away pictures of himself.
That person that receives the picture
would not hang his image up on the wall
next to their family members.
And now he is seen as a friend, as a family member.
Over the course of his public career we've discovered
168 photographs of him.
He understood that he could present himself
as a man worthy of freedom, worthy of citizenship
and change how people thought about
people of African descent who were enslaved.
- [Narrator] Today five billion
people in the world have cellphones,
and three billion people are on some form of social media.
People are taking so many photos
that we've come to think of them as frivolous.
But the increased accessibility
to photography and distribution means
that more people can present themselves
as they want to be seen.
Trans men, trans women,
those who are gender queer or nonconforming.
Those with diverse neurology or diverse physiology.
Teenagers, adults, seniors.
Douglass is singular in his struggles
and his accomplishments.
But he laid out a blueprint for how we take selfies
based on how we want others to see us.
And here's just one example.
Janna Garza is an artist in Austin, Texas,
who was diagnosed in 2015 with polymyositis,
a progressive muscle wasting disease.
When she was worried about being perceived as sick,
the selfie offered her a way out.
- I was on a lower dose of chemo than most people,
like cancer patients, for example.
But then my hair just started falling out in clumps.
And one night I decided to shave it.
I took a picture of myself that night,
and I think that's the night that
my self portraits began.
(gentle music)
One of my early favorites is the boxer.
Although I probably didn't realize it at the time,
one of the driving elements of creation there
was trying to express myself as someone who wasn't sick.
For me, the whole selfie movement liberated me
and gave me an avenue to express myself,
gave me an avenue to put myself out there
the way that I wanted to be represented.
It's just my self expression.
And it's my illness doesn't live there.
I think that art saves lives.
I know it saved mine.
- [Narrator] In the last 17 years of his life
Frederick Douglass resided in this house.
From the second floor he could see across
the Chesapeake Bay to where he had been born into slavery.
It was a reminder of how far he had come
and about how much can change in just one generation.
The first iPhone only came out a little over a decade ago.
And now a majority of the world's population
has a smartphone with a great camera at all times.
An entire generation has grown up with these tools.
They're using selfies to continuously
define and redefine their identity, their sense of self.
So what would Frederick Douglass do with a smartphone?
- Certainly if he were here today he would be
on Twitter with 10 million followers.
He would be on Instagram taking selfies,
and instead of 168 images he'd have 168,000 images,
probably, in a month's time.
And so people today can use that technology
in the same way Frederick used technology in his day
to communicate a message.
- Oh, hey there.
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Selfie, done.