Speaker 1: Well, hey there everyone, Hey everybody, how's it going out there? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I hope everybody's good. Welcome back to the show. Thank
Speaker 1: you for listening. Absolutely very excited about this story. I
Speaker 1: didn't know any of this stuff about Frederick Douglas. Oh no,
Speaker 1: this is totally eye opening to me. Ye, mind opening,
Speaker 1: all of the everything is opened up now everything well, alright,
Speaker 1: like it's a Frederick Douglas story. Let's take our minds
Speaker 1: out of the gutter. Please, We've got we've got stories
Speaker 1: for that. Don't worry this one. Um no, but it's
Speaker 1: so excited to have you back. Everybody had a great weekend.
Speaker 1: We had a nice time. You know, our friends Cherry
Speaker 1: and Jason of course recently on the show. We got
Speaker 1: to hang out with them. Really nice time. We get
Speaker 1: to go see some my old friends from like high
Speaker 1: school days and onwards and uh, and then we got
Speaker 1: to see The Batman, which is so good, guys, it's
Speaker 1: so good, really so good. I was expecting to I
Speaker 1: don't know, I don't know what I was expecting. I
Speaker 1: think I was really like, don't get excited, don't get scared,
Speaker 1: just go to the Batman, like it's our six Batman.
Speaker 1: This year and uh, but I don't know. I liked it,
Speaker 1: but then we saw The Lost City was so fun. Look,
Speaker 1: they just don't make movies like that anymore, and they
Speaker 1: need to. It was so much fun. It was just
Speaker 1: a good time. It's like, yeah, a good time. I'm
Speaker 1: just having fun watching this for real. Daniel Radcliffe was
Speaker 1: having a bell last making it so much fun. Channing
Speaker 1: Tatums hilarious. Sandy b is phenomenal as always as she
Speaker 1: has been from day one. Sandy Be just on the
Speaker 1: ridiculous romance front. I did love that STI what was it?
Speaker 1: A couple of different talk shows where Keanu Reeves confessed
Speaker 1: that he had a big crush on her when they're
Speaker 1: making speed, and she confessed that she had a big
Speaker 1: crush on him and they were making speed and they
Speaker 1: never said anything. Kind a Sandy Be Keanu Reeves thing.
Speaker 1: Instead of whoever she ended up marrying. She well, actually,
Speaker 1: we probably should do Sandy Be on this show because
Speaker 1: she married that former white supremacist or whatever and she
Speaker 1: never knew about it. Something like that. You know what,
Speaker 1: there should be a podcast about it somewhere. Someone should
Speaker 1: really dig into that story. It's like this kind of
Speaker 1: like relationship. That's just um, it's just ridiculous, and somebody
Speaker 1: ought to do a podcast about it. If y'all think
Speaker 1: of anyone who should do that show, let us know,
Speaker 1: maybe tell them. But you're not here for celebs. You're
Speaker 1: not here for movie reviews. Much as we could go
Speaker 1: into it, but no, today we are not talking about
Speaker 1: Sandy b. We're not talking about any one of them.
Speaker 1: We're talking about Frederick Douglas. Baby, one and only. You
Speaker 1: might know Frederick Douglas as a famous escaped slave and
Speaker 1: an abolitionist and an amazing orator and a statesman and
Speaker 1: an author and all these amazing achievements. But did you
Speaker 1: know that ladies loved him? Oh, Freddie friends, he was
Speaker 1: the LLL cool J of his time. L L Freddie D.
Speaker 1: Ladies love the D D love Freddy D. But seriously,
Speaker 1: this is so interesting to read more about him and
Speaker 1: and and look into his relationships, because a lot more
Speaker 1: of his legacy should be credited to the women around him,
Speaker 1: more than I ever knew, and I think more than
Speaker 1: many people ever knew. So I'm very excited to share
Speaker 1: this story with all of you. And let's hear more
Speaker 1: about his wife, Anna Murray and all the other women
Speaker 1: who helped Frederick Douglas become the man that he was
Speaker 1: and preserve his legacy for future generation. Let's go pay
Speaker 1: their friends come listen well, Eli and Diana got some
Speaker 1: stories to tell. No matchmaking, a romantic tips, It's just
Speaker 1: about pridiculous relation, shift a lover. It might be any
Speaker 1: type of person at all, and abstract cons an't a
Speaker 1: concrete wall. But if there's a story with the second glance,
Speaker 1: ridiculous roles. A production of I Heart Radio. Frederick Douglas
Speaker 1: was born Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey in Maryland in February
Speaker 1: eighteen seventeen or eighteen eighteen. The records are not great. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they were great at records back then. Well, not of
Speaker 1: especially of enslaved people. Of enslaved people. They're like, who
Speaker 1: needs to write this down? And yes, he was enslaved.
Speaker 1: His mother was enslaved, so he was as well. And
Speaker 1: it's widely accepted that his father was white. He wrote
Speaker 1: himself that it was whispered around that his master was
Speaker 1: his father, but he never got confirmation of that, so
Speaker 1: it's not known but an all too common story. His
Speaker 1: exact birthdate is unknown, but Frederick chose to celebrate his
Speaker 1: birthday on February fourte because his mother would call him
Speaker 1: her little Vali time cute is very cute. And even
Speaker 1: though he was separated from his mother during infancy what
Speaker 1: Frederick called quote a common custom in Maryland, she lived
Speaker 1: twelve miles away, so she was able to visit him
Speaker 1: a few times before her death when Frederick was only seven.
Speaker 1: So in his childhood, Frederick was sent to serve Hugh
Speaker 1: Auld and his wife Sophia in Baltimore, Maryland. When he
Speaker 1: was about twelve, Sophia all started to teach him the alphabet.
Speaker 1: Sophia had always been kind to Frederick. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: as kind as you know an enslaver can be to
Speaker 1: their enslaved person. I suppose, um, but you know, on
Speaker 1: that relative scale, she was relatively kind. She made sure
Speaker 1: that he got enough food and warm, clean clothes, and
Speaker 1: Frederick wrote about her that she treated him quote as
Speaker 1: she supposed one human being ought to treat another, just
Speaker 1: a little backhanded way to be like idea, well what
Speaker 1: a concept? What have we treated people as if we
Speaker 1: felt like we're supposed to treat them? But Sophia's husband
Speaker 1: Hugh told her stop teaching Frederick how to read and write.
Speaker 1: He thought literacy was going to encourage enslave people to
Speaker 1: desire freedom, which what a concept. Teaching him his letters
Speaker 1: any day now he'll decide he's worth something. Right. So,
Speaker 1: after Hugh said, you know, if enslave people learned to
Speaker 1: read and write, then they'll want their freedom, Frederick wrote,
Speaker 1: quote very well, thought I knowledge unfits a child to
Speaker 1: be a slave. I instinctively assented to the proposition, and
Speaker 1: from that moment I understood the direct pathway from slavery
Speaker 1: to freedom. So he's like, thanks for the idea, boss,
Speaker 1: You're right. If I learn more, I can get the
Speaker 1: hell out of this hell hole. Is that what it takes? Well,
Speaker 1: let me do that, so I will well. Unfortunately, Sophia
Speaker 1: also assented to this proposition. Under her husband's influence, she
Speaker 1: came to agree that slaves should not know how to
Speaker 1: read and write. So she decided to stop teaching Frederick
Speaker 1: to read, and she would like snatch newspapers out of
Speaker 1: his hands. She even hid her Bible from him so
Speaker 1: he couldn't read it, which is just so funny. Again,
Speaker 1: just hiding the knowledge of the Lord seems like, kind
Speaker 1: of runner intuitive what you're trying to do, but whatever,
Speaker 1: that's right. I also want to jump in and say
Speaker 1: one thing that I do kind of love about this
Speaker 1: is that this man who was an enslaver is the
Speaker 1: very guy who gave Frederick Douglas the impulse to go
Speaker 1: out and make something of himself. So congratulations, he played yourself,
Speaker 1: I know, right. And he was like, oh, if you
Speaker 1: learned how to read, you won't be a slave anymore.
Speaker 1: He's like, bet, I will learn how to read. I
Speaker 1: would love to go back and in a time machine
Speaker 1: and find that guy and be like, hey, guess what
Speaker 1: you did. You contributed to one of the prominent figures
Speaker 1: who ended slavery. Asshole, Well, isn't that the main thing? Like,
Speaker 1: isn't that the thing you create? You when you oppressed people,
Speaker 1: you always create your own destruction destructors or whatever. That
Speaker 1: there's a whole phrase for saying it wrong, but anyway,
Speaker 1: exactly that's what he did. So yeah, she was like,
Speaker 1: oh my bad, let me stop teaching this guy how
Speaker 1: to read. But it was too late. Frederick had learned
Speaker 1: enough from Sophia that he was able to continue in
Speaker 1: secret and teach himself and he observed like white shoulder
Speaker 1: and he kind of like watched what they read, or
Speaker 1: he would look over their shoulder and listen to them,
Speaker 1: like sounding things out and stuff, and just continue to
Speaker 1: teach himself in secret how to read and write, and
Speaker 1: at some point learned that his mother had also been
Speaker 1: literate and had taught herself how to read and write,
Speaker 1: and he was like, he would point to that fact
Speaker 1: a lot with a lot of pride because he was
Speaker 1: just like, she snatched that knowledge and away from them
Speaker 1: basically because they didn't want to give it to her,
Speaker 1: and made, you know, she made that happen for herself.
Speaker 1: And he was really proud of that. This is incredible
Speaker 1: to me. And the idea of just like staring at
Speaker 1: words until you learn how to be like that takes
Speaker 1: a real level of intelligence and dedication to teach yourself
Speaker 1: something without someone coming in and telling you, you know, well,
Speaker 1: let's start here, this is how it is totally well
Speaker 1: and then I mean, when I was in China, one
Speaker 1: of our tour guides talked about learning English by listening
Speaker 1: to the radio in English and just listened until she
Speaker 1: could understand what they was saying. And I was just
Speaker 1: like insane, just especially, I mean, at least written. You've
Speaker 1: got the same thing over and over again. Radio you
Speaker 1: just listen to people talk and you have to make
Speaker 1: sense of so much and without someone saying, okay, well,
Speaker 1: let me give you a five code words, like I'll
Speaker 1: translate these five words into your native language and you
Speaker 1: can at least use that as context to figure out
Speaker 1: the rest. But to go from nothing. But the Batman
Speaker 1: himself could not decipher English from the radio, and him
Speaker 1: he didn't know it. Frederick Douglas, you heard it here first.
Speaker 1: Frederick Douglas better than the Batman. So yeah, Frederick Douglas
Speaker 1: learned how to read, learned how to write. He was
Speaker 1: hired out to the Freeland family and he started whole
Speaker 1: holding Sunday school sessions there and he would teach other
Speaker 1: slaves how to read and write as well, and something
Speaker 1: like forty people would come to this Sunday school. And
Speaker 1: I guess the Freeland family was sort of like cool
Speaker 1: with us. They're pretty complacent. They sound kind of like
Speaker 1: the Benedict Cumberbatch character from Slaver was sort of like,
Speaker 1: quote unquote one of the good ones. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: I'll still buy you and consider your property, but I
Speaker 1: won't treat you like ship while I do it um
Speaker 1: So anyway, I think it was kind of their vibe.
Speaker 1: But because slaves from other plantations were coming to this
Speaker 1: Sunday school to learn how to read and write, those owners,
Speaker 1: those masters and enslavers were very angry about this whole scenario,
Speaker 1: and at one point they busted into the Bible study
Speaker 1: with clubs and stones to break it up permanently, and
Speaker 1: that was the end of that. So, as a result
Speaker 1: of all this, Frederick's own enslaver, Thomas Auld, sent him
Speaker 1: to work for ed Word Covey, who was this poor
Speaker 1: farmer who was known as a slave breaker. Now Frederick
Speaker 1: is only sixteen at this point, and he was whipped
Speaker 1: and beaten so frequently that his wounds didn't even have
Speaker 1: time to heal. He wrote that the beatings broke his mind, body,
Speaker 1: and spirit. But one day he turned on Edward and
Speaker 1: fought back, and after that he was never beaten again. So,
Speaker 1: when he was around twenty years old, Frederick was working
Speaker 1: as a caulker down at the docks in Baltimore, and
Speaker 1: one day he met a woman there named Anna Murray.
Speaker 1: Anna had seven older brothers and sisters who had been
Speaker 1: born into slavery, But only a month before Anna was born,
Speaker 1: her mother and father were manumitted, and manumission is when
Speaker 1: a slave owner voluntarily freeze their slaves, whereas emancipation is
Speaker 1: when the government makes you do it. So Anna and
Speaker 1: her four younger siblings were born free man a month.
Speaker 1: You know. Was that some luck right there? And it
Speaker 1: doesn't say if her older siblings had been manumented as well.
Speaker 1: We just kind of hope. So do you think these
Speaker 1: these manumission slaveholders just like woke up and looked in
Speaker 1: the mirror one day and we're like, what the fuck
Speaker 1: am I doing? Yeah? I kind of. I mean, well,
Speaker 1: that's the thing is that it's so interesting to read
Speaker 1: more about um the lead up to the Civil War,
Speaker 1: and that's part of this story because it just kind
Speaker 1: of proves how like slavery was not super popular it
Speaker 1: after we declared our independence and said there should be equality,
Speaker 1: A lot of people read that and we're like, I
Speaker 1: take that for real seriously, and this does not it
Speaker 1: doesn't make sense together. I can't look at this slavery
Speaker 1: institution and also feel proud of my freaking free country
Speaker 1: that everybody's free in because everybody in late seventeen hundred
Speaker 1: stood up and said, that's right, we will no longer
Speaker 1: be slaves to King Joe. Oh wait a second, what
Speaker 1: did I say? Did you say slave? Yeah, that's not
Speaker 1: so good. Are we doing that? Wait a minute. But
Speaker 1: they all, you know a lot of them to Like,
Speaker 1: I mean, Thomas Jefferson manumated some of his slaves. George
Speaker 1: Washington manumated all of his but in his will after
Speaker 1: he was dead, you know what I mean. So they're
Speaker 1: all like just later, like I don't want to do it,
Speaker 1: but like y'all should do it. I think we talked
Speaker 1: about a little in governor more just taking the can
Speaker 1: down the road a little bit. I also just want
Speaker 1: to just want to throw a shout out to Anna's mom,
Speaker 1: who popped out twelve babies, oh my god, most of
Speaker 1: them while she was enslaved herself. Right, good for you.
Speaker 1: I'm just saying, well, yeah, we're over here, like a baby.
Speaker 1: That would really cramp my style. She's rocking twelve in
Speaker 1: and out of enslavement, my god. Um anyway, so Anna
Speaker 1: was born free and she was a very resourceful woman,
Speaker 1: obviously with a big emily um so by the time
Speaker 1: she was seventeen, She's taken in laundry. She's working as
Speaker 1: a housekeeper, paying bills, you know, getting shipped done. And
Speaker 1: some sources say that this work took her to the
Speaker 1: docks and that's how she met Frederick, who was you know,
Speaker 1: culking culking something, I guess. But another source South Coast
Speaker 1: Today says that they met in a group called East
Speaker 1: Baltimore Mental Improvement Society, and that was a group that was,
Speaker 1: you know, formed for free black men and women. But
Speaker 1: Frederick Douglas, who was still enslaved at this time, was
Speaker 1: allowed in because he knew how to read and write,
Speaker 1: and he was also just a very eloquent speaker, and
Speaker 1: that was a plus because one of the main activities
Speaker 1: of the group was giving lectures and you know, speeches
Speaker 1: about I guess mental improvement. But I think that we
Speaker 1: should just because no one really knows. It's not recorded anywhere,
Speaker 1: but I thought we could maybe pull into Speculation Station
Speaker 1: and tell people how they met, how Frederick and Anna met.
Speaker 1: I just picture like a real smooth talking Frederick Douglas.
Speaker 1: I don't feel like he had a line. He had
Speaker 1: had He was pretty handsome, so I feel like he know,
Speaker 1: he was probably a hey, girl, what's in that basket?
Speaker 1: I don't I don't have any game? Well, no, yeah,
Speaker 1: she she walks up and she's he's you know, he's
Speaker 1: working on a ship or something. She's like impressive cock,
Speaker 1: and he's like, excuse me, thank you? So Anna had games? Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was an Anna came at like that. I mean
Speaker 1: he left the door wide open working as a cocker.
Speaker 1: I think he would have. What would you say, though,
Speaker 1: if you saw a pretty laundress walking down the street
Speaker 1: with her laundry basket and you were like, I got
Speaker 1: to talk to her, what would I say? I don't know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: first of all, I'm gonna have game either. I've never
Speaker 1: the only way I've ever dated women is by already
Speaker 1: being friends with them for many years. Okay, that's true.
Speaker 1: So that's what I would do. I would invite her
Speaker 1: to join my theater company, and in a few years
Speaker 1: down the line, I'd wait for her to make a
Speaker 1: move on me. That's hey, It's worked every time. I think. Ultimately,
Speaker 1: the real challenge here is me trying to imagine anything
Speaker 1: about what Frederick Douglas would feel like in any given situation. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so I think I'm just gonna leave that one in
Speaker 1: speculation station. All right, Well, I liked the cult jokes
Speaker 1: we came up with anyway, Yeah, exactly so. Anna herself
Speaker 1: was about five years older than Frederick, and her freedom
Speaker 1: made Frederick believe that he could be free too. He
Speaker 1: had tried once before to escape slavery about four or
Speaker 1: five years earlier when he was working for the freelance
Speaker 1: but that had been unsuccessful. But after meeting Anna for
Speaker 1: the first time since then, he started plotting his escape.
Speaker 1: But this time he had an ace up his sleeve.
Speaker 1: Anna herself. She sold one of her feather beds and
Speaker 1: gave him part of her life savings to fund his
Speaker 1: escape out of Maryland. When she took in laundry, she
Speaker 1: would set aside pieces of sailor's clothing to give him
Speaker 1: to wear as disguise. Frederick got his identification papers from
Speaker 1: a free black sailor that he could travel under, and
Speaker 1: then finally, in eighteen thirty eight, everything was ready. Frederick
Speaker 1: escaped and made his way to the home of abolitionist
Speaker 1: David Ruggles in New York City, and for this short
Speaker 1: journey he was enjoying his freedom. Only twenty four hours
Speaker 1: after leaving Maryland. He wrote of his first free day quote,
Speaker 1: a new world had opened upon me. I lived more
Speaker 1: in one day than in a year of my slave life.
Speaker 1: Thinking about Ellen and William Kraft, of course, oh yes,
Speaker 1: that is such a good episode. I must say, if
Speaker 1: you haven't heard that one, go back and listen to
Speaker 1: it because their escape is incredible. Just edgier seat ship
Speaker 1: the whole time. But they had to go a thousand
Speaker 1: miles freedom that was the name of their book. So
Speaker 1: this was just blowing my mind that, like they had
Speaker 1: to go a thousand miles and once they got there,
Speaker 1: it must have felt like, well, I freaking really escaped
Speaker 1: from something. I had to really go far away to
Speaker 1: get away from that. Whereas he almost was like next door,
Speaker 1: you know, and he's like looking at a free place,
Speaker 1: and it's like I just can't get there, and I
Speaker 1: need to get there, and I don't get money. That's
Speaker 1: sort of my whole problem to get money for my labor,
Speaker 1: so I have no freedom to move about. I just
Speaker 1: think it must be so weird to just be like, man,
Speaker 1: yesterday I was not safe and now I am absolutely Yeah,
Speaker 1: just a totally different mindset. Just showing two different versions
Speaker 1: of this is just yeah, and then just again. Just
Speaker 1: to be so close and not be free yourself must
Speaker 1: be so maddening. So yeah, he's in New York, He's
Speaker 1: breathing free air. He feels great, and he sends for
Speaker 1: Anna to join him. And they were married eleven days
Speaker 1: after he escaped slavery on September thirty eight, and they
Speaker 1: took the name Johnson, and then they moved to New Bedford,
Speaker 1: Massachusetts to start their married life together. So their daughter,
Speaker 1: Rosetta Douglas Sprague wrote a paper called Anna Murray Douglas,
Speaker 1: my mother, as I recall her, and it's basically one
Speaker 1: of the only pieces of writing that tells us anything
Speaker 1: about Anna and her contributions to Frederick's life. And Rosetta
Speaker 1: wrote of their duly wed life together, quote, the little
Speaker 1: that they possessed was the outcome of the industrial and
Speaker 1: economic habits that were characteristic of my mother. She had
Speaker 1: brought with her sufficient goods and chattel to fit up
Speaker 1: comfortably two rooms in her new Bedford home, a feather
Speaker 1: bed with pillows, bed linen, dishes, knives, forks, and spoons,
Speaker 1: besides a well filled trunk of wearing apparel, for herself.
Speaker 1: The early days in New Bedford were spent in daily toil,
Speaker 1: the wife at the washboard, the husband with saw buck
Speaker 1: and ax. So you see your there's a really close team. Um.
Speaker 1: She thought of everything, and she was just very good
Speaker 1: at making a home out of wherever she is. It
Speaker 1: seems like um and they both had to work incredibly
Speaker 1: hard to keep it together those early days, and only
Speaker 1: a couple of years later they moved to Lynn, Massachusetts,
Speaker 1: and they stayed with a couple named Nathan and Mary Johnson.
Speaker 1: So they get in there like George Johnson, we are Johnson.
Speaker 1: I thought we were the Johnson's Excuse me, Mr Johnson? Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: fifty guys. So they decided that Johnson was just too
Speaker 1: common of a name, so Frederick asked Nathan what they
Speaker 1: should change theirs too, and Nathan had recently read the
Speaker 1: poem Lady of the Lake and he suggested Douglas, after
Speaker 1: one of the main characters, so they took the name
Speaker 1: Frederick and Anna Douglas. Frederick wanted to join a white
Speaker 1: Methodist church, but this church was segregated, so he instead
Speaker 1: joined a black congregation that included sojourn or Truth and
Speaker 1: Harriet Tubman as members. I feel like if I was
Speaker 1: in that white Methodist church, I'd be like, let me
Speaker 1: um can I also so Frederick became a preacher the
Speaker 1: next year, which helped him hone his public speaking skills,
Speaker 1: and he continued to join and organize with abolitionist groups.
Speaker 1: That is when he met the famous abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison,
Speaker 1: who ran the most radical, prominent anti slavery newspaper, The Liberator.
Speaker 1: Each man was totally impressed with the other. Frederick said
Speaker 1: Garrison's paper was second only to the Bible in his heart,
Speaker 1: and they soon became close collaborators in the fight to
Speaker 1: end slavery. And as some of the meetings that Frederick attended,
Speaker 1: he would be invited to speak, and like every time
Speaker 1: he talked, people were like, holy shit, this guy's amazing. Um,
Speaker 1: he really impressed the crowd. He had so eloquent, his
Speaker 1: delivery was amazing. He had great presence, but also his
Speaker 1: personal story was just incredibly stirring. He could talk about
Speaker 1: life in slavery, life escaping slavery, living basically illegally as
Speaker 1: a freeman. And they also thought that his eloquence and
Speaker 1: education made him kind of a great living example of
Speaker 1: how dumb it was to think that black people are
Speaker 1: inherently inferior to white people. You know. They were just like,
Speaker 1: if you withhold education, obviously people are going to be uneducated,
Speaker 1: but not because they're just unable to learn. At this
Speaker 1: guy he taught himself what you teach yourself, William Lloyd Garrison.
Speaker 1: But yeah, so they were basically like, oh, this is
Speaker 1: a really good you know again example capital e of
Speaker 1: a good black man. I guess that we can use
Speaker 1: as a good mascot people. They always need to hear
Speaker 1: that ship right, and we you know, respectability politics aside.
Speaker 1: That was really important at the time. So Frederick was
Speaker 1: encouraged to become an anti slavery lecturer, and so he
Speaker 1: took his first six month lecture tour in eighteen forty
Speaker 1: three throughout the Eastern and Midwestern states, talking about slavery.
Speaker 1: In Indiana, he was badly beaten by slavery supporters after
Speaker 1: one of his speeches, and his hand was broken in
Speaker 1: the attack. He actually had to be rescued by a
Speaker 1: Quaker couple and it healed improperly and bothered him for
Speaker 1: the rest of his life. And in five he published
Speaker 1: the first edition of his autobiography. Now, Anna was part
Speaker 1: of abolition organization efforts too. She was active in a
Speaker 1: group called the Boston Female Anti Slavery Society or be
Speaker 1: Fast acronym myself Shake the Fast, Watch Yourself bf S
Speaker 1: the Boston Female as no sending that by the time
Speaker 1: Frederick was publishing his autobiography, they already had four children
Speaker 1: to get there. There was Rosetta who was born in
Speaker 1: eighteen thirty nine, Lewis Henry in eighteen forty, Frederick Jr.
Speaker 1: In eighteen forty two, and Charles Rimond into But Anna
Speaker 1: did even more than that. Frederick's work lecturing and writing
Speaker 1: about slavery didn't pay that well, so Anna supported the
Speaker 1: family financially. She took in laundry, she learned how to
Speaker 1: make shoes. The family leaned on her even more after
Speaker 1: Frederick's life story was published, because people thought his growing
Speaker 1: fame as a speaker would attract the attention of Thomas
Speaker 1: and Hugh Auld, Frederick's enslavers, who legally legally in quotes
Speaker 1: like still technically had ownership of him, like he had escaped,
Speaker 1: so they could go to the courts and say this
Speaker 1: guy belongs to me and taken back outrageous. So he
Speaker 1: had to get the hell out of there to avoid
Speaker 1: being tracked down and sent back into slavery. So he
Speaker 1: hopped a boat and took off for Ireland and Great Britain.
Speaker 1: Again like the Crafts who also had to escape to
Speaker 1: England in a while because they were being searched for
Speaker 1: and they had to be housed and people had to
Speaker 1: hide them away from fugitive slave fugitive catchers or whatever
Speaker 1: they were called. Yeah, you had to put an ocean
Speaker 1: between you and those guys to get away. And again
Speaker 1: it wasn't that long ago that you know, we're right
Speaker 1: in the Constitution and saying what a great country this is,
Speaker 1: and it I think William Kraft wrote about it where
Speaker 1: he was like, it was very strange to have to
Speaker 1: leave my great country in order to experience freedom and
Speaker 1: and safety of movements and protection under the law, protection
Speaker 1: and safety in the very country that you that the
Speaker 1: United States escaped from exactly all of their oppressive laws.
Speaker 1: So it's a disconnect. Yeah, yeah, you know. So he's
Speaker 1: in Ireland and Great Britain and his lectures there would
Speaker 1: be backed to bursting with interested listeners, and you know,
Speaker 1: things weren't great in Ireland at the time. A fungus
Speaker 1: had just killed off half the potato crop for that year,
Speaker 1: which is big in Ireland. But even amongst all that,
Speaker 1: Frederick was astounded at what it was like to live
Speaker 1: in a place without racial discrimination. He wrote, quote, I
Speaker 1: gaze around in vain for one who will question my
Speaker 1: equal humanity, or claim me as his slave, or offer
Speaker 1: me an insult. I employ a cab, I am seated
Speaker 1: by white people. I reached the hotel, I enter the
Speaker 1: same door, I am shown the same parlor, I dine
Speaker 1: at the same table, and no one is offended. I
Speaker 1: find myself regarded and treated at every turn with the
Speaker 1: kindness and deference paid to white people. It must have
Speaker 1: been so hard for them to do that, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean? All that, No, it wasn't hard. It
Speaker 1: was like, it's incredible to me that. I mean, I
Speaker 1: know there's a whole lot of racism going on in England.
Speaker 1: And we've spoken before about for how many years before
Speaker 1: the Declaration of Independence was signed, England was definitely profiting
Speaker 1: off slavery in the US, but they got rid of
Speaker 1: it before we did. And according to people like the
Speaker 1: Crafts and Frederick Douglas. It was a whole. It was
Speaker 1: a paradise comparatively, you know, in terms of racial discrimination.
Speaker 1: Obviously it's frustrating just looking back through history, but then
Speaker 1: thinking about being in that time and having two such
Speaker 1: obvious start contrasts to look at it, look at and say,
Speaker 1: but but it's fine. It's the modern world in both places.
Speaker 1: How come one of you is so backwards. It's really
Speaker 1: interesting because, as you say, there's certainly racism in other countries. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that terrible, bad racism. But um, I also know that
Speaker 1: there is a very speci ific racism directed towards African
Speaker 1: Americans particularly. And there was this guy who he was
Speaker 1: from Africa and he came to America and he was
Speaker 1: talking on one podcast and I wish I could remember
Speaker 1: it was it was like a food he's like a
Speaker 1: chef guy. I think it was point of origin. Um.
Speaker 1: But he was talking about coming to America and working
Speaker 1: as a chef or as a cook and in the
Speaker 1: kitchens and stuff. And he was like, and people would
Speaker 1: be so horrible to me, and then they would hear
Speaker 1: my accent and it was like I was a better
Speaker 1: black person because I wasn't from America. I was really
Speaker 1: from Africa, and I was like, that's so interesting to
Speaker 1: see that change happened right in front of you, that
Speaker 1: they think you're American and then suddenly you're oh you're
Speaker 1: Oh you're not. You're not a black American. So you're different,
Speaker 1: like better in some way or you deserve more respect
Speaker 1: or something. I don't know. It was just like we
Speaker 1: because we're trying to ascribe logic. Who are racists brain?
Speaker 1: You know, and there's no logic and racism, you know,
Speaker 1: it doesn't make any sense. There's no way you can
Speaker 1: put it where you go, oh well okay, well that
Speaker 1: logically that makes it. There is none of that, you
Speaker 1: know what there is though, commercial crap. Sorry we've been
Speaker 1: going on. It is time for a commercial break and
Speaker 1: we will be right back with more after this and
Speaker 1: welcome back to the show. So Frederick Douglass spent two
Speaker 1: years overseas lucky, right, Like, I'm rarely going to say
Speaker 1: Frederick Douglas was lucky. I'll just say it this month.
Speaker 1: But it sucks that he had to be there for
Speaker 1: that long. Seriously, he had to be away from Anna.
Speaker 1: This wasn't a vacation. Yeah, he couldn't go home, so
Speaker 1: he spent two years away from everyone. He was lecturing
Speaker 1: and befriending British abolitionists. And while he was there, his supporters,
Speaker 1: led by two women, Anna Richardson and her sister in
Speaker 1: law Ellen of Newcastle upon Time, which I just love.
Speaker 1: I love those British um they raised the money to
Speaker 1: purchase his freedom from the all but so that he
Speaker 1: would be able to go back to America legally amazing.
Speaker 1: And of course everyone wanted him to stay in England
Speaker 1: because they were like, you're amazing, Frederick Douglas. I guess
Speaker 1: they were like, you're amazing, Frederick Douglas. Yeah, you know, so, yeah,
Speaker 1: everyone wants him to stay in England. But Frederick has
Speaker 1: his family back home. He's like, I want to go home.
Speaker 1: And plus, not to mention, there was three nearly four
Speaker 1: million black people living in slavery still and he felt like,
Speaker 1: I have work to do at home, so he chose
Speaker 1: to go back in and he and Anna were really
Speaker 1: attracted by the very active abolitionists and women's rights movements
Speaker 1: that were going on in Rochester, New York. Shout out
Speaker 1: to Rochester, so they moved their family from Massachusetts to
Speaker 1: Rochester and Frederick had five hundred pounds from his British supporters, which,
Speaker 1: if I can pull out the calculators, that's nearly forty
Speaker 1: seven thousand dollars today. So he got he took a
Speaker 1: two year trip to the UK and came back with
Speaker 1: dollars more than he left with. That is the opposite
Speaker 1: of what would happen does We definitely left our money there,
Speaker 1: But I think that's cool. They raised not only enough
Speaker 1: money to purchase himself, which is a weird thing to say,
Speaker 1: but whatever, enough money for that, and also this extra money, Um,
Speaker 1: that's pretty rad. So it just goes to show how
Speaker 1: popular he was over there. And he used this money
Speaker 1: to start his own abolitionist newspaper, North Star, in the
Speaker 1: basement of the Memorial A. M. E. Zion Church, and
Speaker 1: he and Anna also used their house as a stop
Speaker 1: on the Underground railroad and they provided safeboard, clean clothes
Speaker 1: and food to fugitives on their way to Canada. Anna
Speaker 1: of course main coordinator of that work because it's all
Speaker 1: about domestic stuff, but their kids also pitched in. Their
Speaker 1: son Charles wrote later on in his life quote, we
Speaker 1: have often had to get up at midnight to admit
Speaker 1: a sleigh load and start fires to thaw the fugitives out.
Speaker 1: Every member of the family had to lend a hand
Speaker 1: to this work, and it was always cheerfully performed. Now,
Speaker 1: the North Star got glowing reviews, but they did struggle financially.
Speaker 1: Not everyone in Rochester was happy to have yet another
Speaker 1: anti slavery newspaper published in their town, particularly when it
Speaker 1: was edited by a former slave. The New York Herald
Speaker 1: even encouraged its readers to dump Frederick's printing press into Lake, Ontario.
Speaker 1: Frederick returned to the lecturing circuit to pay for the
Speaker 1: costs of producing the newspaper, and even ended up putting
Speaker 1: a mortgage on his house, but subscriptions grew slowly. But
Speaker 1: then a British friend, a white woman named Julia Griffiths,
Speaker 1: came in and helped him out, and that brings us
Speaker 1: to this episode's first side piece, May I help? Julia
Speaker 1: Griffiths was a British abolitionist. She met Frederick Douglas while
Speaker 1: he was in Ireland and Great Britain, and she'd been
Speaker 1: one of the many women who helped fundraise to send
Speaker 1: Frederick home with enough money to start North Star. So
Speaker 1: when she heard it was struggling. She's like, oh no,
Speaker 1: we can't have that. And she moved to Rochester, New York,
Speaker 1: just moved her whole life there to become the editor
Speaker 1: and publisher of the paper and to handle the finances
Speaker 1: and get the money in order. And eventually, thanks to her,
Speaker 1: he was able to regain the mortgage on his home
Speaker 1: and the paper was on even financial footing within a
Speaker 1: few years. So thanks to Julia, um and Frederick also
Speaker 1: asked her to come live at his house in Rochester
Speaker 1: and tutor Anna and their children. But with Anna she
Speaker 1: did fail. Rosetta Douglas Sprague wrote about her mother quote,
Speaker 1: Unfortunately an opportunity for knowledge of books was denied her,
Speaker 1: the lack of which she greatly deplored. Her increasing family
Speaker 1: and household duties prevented any great advancement. Although she was
Speaker 1: able to read a little, so she was a little
Speaker 1: too busy to be learning everything else because she was
Speaker 1: making it all work. She's making their homework exactly. And
Speaker 1: also another historian, Rose O'Keefe pointed out that she was
Speaker 1: keeping their work, you know as being part of the
Speaker 1: underground railroad a secret. Also like you know, that's a
Speaker 1: secret you can't tell people about that. So she was
Speaker 1: handling a lot, a very sensitive work and sensitive information
Speaker 1: and just balancing a lot in the background, makes sense,
Speaker 1: And Anna's illiteracy and her sort of lack of polish
Speaker 1: kind of led to a bit of a distance between
Speaker 1: her and her husband. Frederick was on the road a lot.
Speaker 1: He's this famous abolitionist lecturer. He's hob nobbing it with
Speaker 1: all the notable names of the day, while Anna's back
Speaker 1: home doing domestic work. Rosetta even wrote that because of
Speaker 1: his frequent absences, quote, father was mother's honored guest. So
Speaker 1: it was like, you know, vibe in the house. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Like when he came home, it's like, oh, oh you're here,
Speaker 1: let me set up a bed for you or whatever.
Speaker 1: She's dead. It was like a flutter of activity every
Speaker 1: time his comings and goings and important events because he
Speaker 1: was such a I mean, he was coming and going
Speaker 1: a lot. Many of Frederick's white contemporaries in particular, kind
Speaker 1: of looked down on Anna. They saw no value in
Speaker 1: her contributions to the household. Taylor as old as time.
Speaker 1: Women not getting enough credit for the very important work
Speaker 1: they're doing at home, and they didn't really see much
Speaker 1: more of her contributions to the underground Railroad. Either maybe,
Speaker 1: like you said, because it's a secret, it's not you're
Speaker 1: not supposed to go out there and flaunt all the
Speaker 1: work you're doing for the underground Railroad. Um. But they're
Speaker 1: thinking was that she should be involved in the abolition
Speaker 1: movement in the same way Frederick was like, that would
Speaker 1: be more valuable, like he should be married to a
Speaker 1: woman as smart and well spoken as he is, or
Speaker 1: something like, No, she had smart in different ways. They
Speaker 1: had different things, right, different skill sets. They also got
Speaker 1: real racist about it. They would comment negatively about Anna's
Speaker 1: dark skin, her facial features, her nose, her lips. They
Speaker 1: always mentioned that she was quote very black, which is
Speaker 1: just a coded way of saying that she wasn't pretty like.
Speaker 1: That was their way of pointing out, well, she's not
Speaker 1: pretty like I think pretty is just some more racist bullshit.
Speaker 1: And unfortunately historians pretty much took this view as well,
Speaker 1: and they kind of wrote off Anna until very recently
Speaker 1: because now in history we're like coming to real terms
Speaker 1: with the idea that having a home support like Anna
Speaker 1: is what gave people like Frederick the freedom of time
Speaker 1: and movement. To do all the world changing that they did.
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, we've talked about this before with even
Speaker 1: some of the women who managed to do amazing things.
Speaker 1: And you have to notice that it's partly because they
Speaker 1: were pretty rich and they were comfortable, and they had
Speaker 1: time to sit and think about the human conditions, like
Speaker 1: when you're busy working and trying to feed yourself, you
Speaker 1: just don't have that kind of freedom. And I think
Speaker 1: people are realizing it more now because so many more
Speaker 1: people do both and have to do both, and so
Speaker 1: they're like, oh, ship, what happened all the innovations, what
Speaker 1: happened to all the No one has time because they
Speaker 1: they're doing the work that Anna was doing to write.
Speaker 1: This historian leave Out, who wrote The Women in the
Speaker 1: World of Frederick Douglas, told USA Today, quote, this is
Speaker 1: real woman behind the man stuff. I think it's important
Speaker 1: for people to remember how much he respected her and
Speaker 1: relied on her. Women's history has forced people to look
Speaker 1: at the role that women played in making great men
Speaker 1: great now. Julia also became Frederick's office and business manager
Speaker 1: and his almost constant companion. She arranged his lectures, she
Speaker 1: would accompany him to meetings. She was still managing the papers,
Speaker 1: finances and people in Rochester apparently just we're pearl clutching
Speaker 1: for a little while and just had to get used
Speaker 1: to seeing this black leader and his white assistant walking
Speaker 1: arm in arm down the street. She was also a
Speaker 1: founding member of the Rochester Ladies Anti Slavery Society, the
Speaker 1: Rochester Ladies. Stop, you gotta stop about the Last, Our Last,
Speaker 1: the Rochester Last. That's better than the Rochester Ladies, and
Speaker 1: I think it's more respectful. She published an anthology of
Speaker 1: anti slavery literature called Autographs for Freedom that was so
Speaker 1: popular it had to have a second edition, and she
Speaker 1: used the money that she raised with Our Last to
Speaker 1: support North Star, the newspaper, as well as establishing a
Speaker 1: school for freedmen in Kansas, distributing anti slavery literature in Kentucky,
Speaker 1: and providing small cash gifts to fugitives along the underground
Speaker 1: Railroad to finance their journeys to freedom, because it takes
Speaker 1: money to take a journey, as you know. And at
Speaker 1: least a hundred and thirty six enslaved people were helped
Speaker 1: by the society directly in this way. Okay, Julia, um,
Speaker 1: So that's really dope. And I was enjoying learning about
Speaker 1: these little Rochester and Boston, these these chapters of these
Speaker 1: anti slavery societies, because you have to remember that, like
Speaker 1: it took a lot of little community organizing to create
Speaker 1: a nationwide change. And it seems just because we're so
Speaker 1: much taught from one war to the next, you never
Speaker 1: really get the lead up. You don't hear about all
Speaker 1: the really boring grassroots, annoying, tiny, small you know, one
Speaker 1: step forward, two steps back, work that was happening for
Speaker 1: decades before the thing actually came to fruition. So these
Speaker 1: ladies were doing that hard stuff. You often feel like
Speaker 1: it takes some giant to help, you know, many millions
Speaker 1: of p people at a time to make a big
Speaker 1: difference in the world, and it has often not that.
Speaker 1: It's often this organization helped a hundred and thirty six people,
Speaker 1: That one helped seventy Holy crap, this one helped three hundred, Like,
Speaker 1: you know, that's I think that's how it's got to be. Yeah, Also,
Speaker 1: if I can get us to pass the Bechdel test
Speaker 1: here real quick, do you think Julia was working with Anna?
Speaker 1: Because Anna did so much fund a round railroad. I
Speaker 1: imagine they must have been having some some collaborative conversations
Speaker 1: as well. Right, that is a great question. I would
Speaker 1: love to speculate about that. I think I would love
Speaker 1: to just say that Julia was not a piece of
Speaker 1: ship to Anna. I would like to assume that. Um,
Speaker 1: so hopefully that'd be cool. If she's like, hey, you know,
Speaker 1: like what would really help in your ground railroad And
Speaker 1: she's like, well, honestly they need money to get to
Speaker 1: Canada where Rochester were pretty close but a lot close.
Speaker 1: They still need money. Julie is like, oh, if it's
Speaker 1: something I know how to do, it's raised a pound
Speaker 1: or two. Yes. So by this time him Frederick was
Speaker 1: also advocating for the right for women to vote. He
Speaker 1: was the only black person to attend the first Women's
Speaker 1: Rights Convention at Seneca Falls in eighty and he had
Speaker 1: also had a falling out with his abolitionist friend William
Speaker 1: Lloyd Garrison in eighteen seven. See Garrison felt that the
Speaker 1: Constitution itself was inherently pro slavery because of the three
Speaker 1: five clause, and he would actually go out and publicly
Speaker 1: burn copies of the Constitution to make his point. It's
Speaker 1: like this, He's like an older white guy. So I
Speaker 1: just love imagining him. It's like this punk performance ars
Speaker 1: like what is this document? This is garbage? Set it
Speaker 1: on fire, so like radical, I love it. And at
Speaker 1: first Frederick totally agreed with him. But later Frederick heard
Speaker 1: more persuasive arguments from Lysander Spooner examining the Constitution as
Speaker 1: an anti slavery document, and this kind of changed Frederick's position,
Speaker 1: and this caused one of the abolition movements most notable divisions,
Speaker 1: because these two famous men kind of went head to
Speaker 1: head arguing their points in their respective newspapers. Yeah and yeah,
Speaker 1: it was just I think for Frederick Douglas. Here, you know,
Speaker 1: on one side, you've got a guy being like, funk
Speaker 1: this whole document that this country is based on. And
Speaker 1: on the other side, you've got a guy going, actually,
Speaker 1: we could read this as this document protects freedoms of
Speaker 1: all men. It says so right here, quality everywhere, Um
Speaker 1: so why not use it? And I think Frederick was like,
Speaker 1: which one's gonna work? And it seems a lot harder
Speaker 1: to be like, let's completely rewrite the entire constitution that
Speaker 1: we just wrote, or actually, we can just amend this
Speaker 1: one existing one, So I think it was just more
Speaker 1: about what's going to win, that's the main thing. But
Speaker 1: shortly after they're falling out, Garrison with no real evidence,
Speaker 1: by the way, accused Frederick and Julia of having an affair,
Speaker 1: and so this rumor was going around for several years
Speaker 1: that they were actually sleeping together and not just working together. Um,
Speaker 1: and so Anna had to hear all these whisperings about
Speaker 1: that ship while she was pregnant with her and Frederick's
Speaker 1: fifth child, Annie, who was born at the end of
Speaker 1: eighteen forty nine. There's no evidence to support this claim now,
Speaker 1: and it does feel like classic bullshit behavior from someone
Speaker 1: who's Mattie and also super sexist to be like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: there's a woman working with you. Well, people will believe
Speaker 1: it if I say that you're sleeping with her, then
Speaker 1: you know, and uh they you know. He was accused
Speaker 1: a number of times of having affairs and partly you know,
Speaker 1: to discredit his work as an abolitionist, and it worked,
Speaker 1: I guess, because it played into the stereotype of African
Speaker 1: American men being like this over sext impossible, it can't
Speaker 1: be faithful, just totally out of control type of people.
Speaker 1: Even back then, this that stereotype was present very much.
Speaker 1: So yes, so yeah, they That's frustrating to me that
Speaker 1: Garrison did it because he supposedly cares about ending slavery,
Speaker 1: but but he wants to tear down one of the
Speaker 1: major names in the movement. Says to me, he doesn't
Speaker 1: care so much about the end goal. He just cared
Speaker 1: about being right. He's like, I want my argument to win,
Speaker 1: so I don't really care what happens to you. Like,
Speaker 1: that's maddening to me. I don't know. Obviously I didn't
Speaker 1: look at whim Lloyd Garrison's life story for this, but
Speaker 1: I was mad at him in this moment. So in
Speaker 1: eighteen fifty two, Julia moved out of the Douglas house,
Speaker 1: and she was hoping that this would kind of lay
Speaker 1: this rumor to rest that they were having an affairs,
Speaker 1: like I'm gonna just kind of distance myself a little
Speaker 1: bit physically from you, Um. But they still worked together.
Speaker 1: She was still a colleague of his and a confidante
Speaker 1: Um as he continued his very important work in eighteen
Speaker 1: fifty two. On July five, he gave his famous speech
Speaker 1: What to the Slave Is the fourth of July, which
Speaker 1: one biographer called quote perhaps the greatest anti slavery oration
Speaker 1: ever given. So what do you say. We go over
Speaker 1: to the podium and here's some of it. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: feel fine reading Frederick Douglas's words. Well, we have to
Speaker 1: do that a lot on this show. But no, because
Speaker 1: I think this is a really cool speech and it's
Speaker 1: important to hear it. It is well, and we just
Speaker 1: had a recent, you know, kind of national conversation about
Speaker 1: Juneteenth and why you know there might be a different
Speaker 1: celebration of the freedom of this country for the black
Speaker 1: community because they have a different from day of freedom
Speaker 1: than we do then white people do. So. Yeah, So,
Speaker 1: not playing Frederick Douglas, but rather sharing with you his words,
Speaker 1: we'll read some of this speech, he says. Quote. I
Speaker 1: say it with a sad sense of the disparity between us.
Speaker 1: I am not included within the pale of this glorious anniversary.
Speaker 1: Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us.
Speaker 1: The blessings in which you this day rejoice are not
Speaker 1: enjoyed in common. The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity,
Speaker 1: and independence bequeathed by your fathers is shared by you,
Speaker 1: not by me. The sunlight that brought life and healing
Speaker 1: to you has brought stripes and death to me. This
Speaker 1: Fourth of July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice,
Speaker 1: I must mourn. What to the American slave is your
Speaker 1: fourth of July? I answer a day that reveals to him,
Speaker 1: more than all other days in the year, the gross
Speaker 1: injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim.
Speaker 1: To him, your celebration is a sham, your boasted liberty
Speaker 1: and unholy license, your national greatness swelling vanity. Your sounds
Speaker 1: of rejoicing are empty and heartless. Your denunciation of tyrants
Speaker 1: brass fronted impudence, Your shouts of liberty and equality hollow mockery.
Speaker 1: Your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all
Speaker 1: your religious parade and solemnity, are to him mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety,
Speaker 1: and hypocrisy, a thin veil to cover up crimes which
Speaker 1: would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a
Speaker 1: nation on the earth guilty of practices more shocking and
Speaker 1: bloody than are the people of these United States at
Speaker 1: this very hour. Damn, I mean lays it all out
Speaker 1: for you. I mean he really it's a it's a
Speaker 1: long speech and he basically lays out the entire history
Speaker 1: of the country so far in it. And it's very
Speaker 1: interesting to see his perspective on it, and that I
Speaker 1: love that he was so fiery. He did not pull punches.
Speaker 1: He said exactly what he meant right, what was true,
Speaker 1: But he didn't try to, you know, Sugarcoata for anybody.
Speaker 1: It's fascinating to me. But there were rumors about Julia
Speaker 1: that were still swirling Julian and Frederick's Tarrett affair, allegedly
Speaker 1: thanks a lot Garss, he probably just kept bringing it up,
Speaker 1: you know, every time he did something cool, they'd be like, well,
Speaker 1: but he is fucking a secretary or whatever, you know.
Speaker 1: So Julius sees all this and she recognizes that this
Speaker 1: is detrimental to the anti slavery work that needed to
Speaker 1: be done. So in eighteen fifty five she decided the
Speaker 1: best thing to do was to go back to England,
Speaker 1: and while there she did continue to write columns for
Speaker 1: Frederick Tunklus's paper, and she continued to raise funds for
Speaker 1: the Rochester Ladies Anti Slavery Society, and she continued to
Speaker 1: organize other anti slavery societies as well. Eighteen de nine
Speaker 1: she married a minister. Big up to Julia. You know,
Speaker 1: she kept moving. I love too that hearing how many
Speaker 1: people were working towards the cause of ending slavery in America,
Speaker 1: that we weren't even in America, like that should even
Speaker 1: that they don't even live here, you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: And they're like, what is happening over there? Well, and
Speaker 1: I really respect to that. She looked around and she said, well,
Speaker 1: what I want is to stay here and hang out
Speaker 1: with my friend Frederick and do the work that I
Speaker 1: can do here. But this is bigger than me. I
Speaker 1: can't just it's not about what I want. So I
Speaker 1: guess the best thing for the thing that I care about,
Speaker 1: Mr Garrison is to leave Mr Garrison exactly she saw
Speaker 1: she put the goal ahead of herself, and I don't
Speaker 1: think he did. Again, I don't have any speculation. Station
Speaker 1: William Lord Garrison was like, OK, Mr Douglas in this instance,
Speaker 1: it really does look like that. So that's pretty dope
Speaker 1: of Julia. We like Julia here. Yeah, so far, hopefully
Speaker 1: they weren't having an a fair. It would be really
Speaker 1: weird for her to live in Anna's house. I would
Speaker 1: not like that. We would have a real problem with
Speaker 1: that an issue. But given the fact that there's no
Speaker 1: evidence towards that affair, Frederick and Anna continued to have
Speaker 1: their marriage the whole time they were there, seemingly happily,
Speaker 1: you know, all things considered, I don't I don't think
Speaker 1: we can assume that there was one. So we like Julia, Yeah,
Speaker 1: well say, on this show, Julia is cool. Yeah, But
Speaker 1: less than a year after Julia left, another white woman
Speaker 1: arrived in Frederick's life and caused a bit more of
Speaker 1: an upset. So let's find out more about her right
Speaker 1: after this commercial break and welcome back to the show.
Speaker 1: So in eighteen fifty six, a lady showed up literally
Speaker 1: knocking on Frederick and Anna's door, and she's like, hey,
Speaker 1: I want to translate your latest work into German. And
Speaker 1: that brings us to Audily austing this episode second side
Speaker 1: Knock Knock, and most of our information about Audily comes
Speaker 1: from a book called Love Across Color Lines by Maria Diedrich.
Speaker 1: Audally Austin was born to middle class Jewish parents in Germany.
Speaker 1: Seems like she was kind of a rebel from society,
Speaker 1: you know, she grew up with like pretty revolutionary ideal.
Speaker 1: She had a very good education, and she liked to
Speaker 1: flaunt society's moray's for women she worked. For example, she
Speaker 1: worked as a tutor for a famous actor's kids, and
Speaker 1: she was probably his lover. And she really took a
Speaker 1: lot of satisfaction from the scandal that arose because of
Speaker 1: their affair. And it was is kind of because she
Speaker 1: felt like, I you know, that shows you how unconventional
Speaker 1: I am. I'm not like other girls, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean. She was one of the I was like
Speaker 1: type of ladies. She's very proud of how different she
Speaker 1: is and how oh I don't even care about your
Speaker 1: weird little tight wad rules. I'm very special, you know.
Speaker 1: And she became a journalist. She wrote columns for a
Speaker 1: German newspaper, but thanks to growing anti semitism and restrictions
Speaker 1: to the press, she fled to America in eighteen fifty
Speaker 1: two and made her home in Hoboken, New Jersey. That's
Speaker 1: the culture shock for real. But of course, if you
Speaker 1: hadn't heard, uh, there is also anti semitism here, so
Speaker 1: that she faced that problem right off the bat. Plus
Speaker 1: America already had a little disdain for immigrants, and her
Speaker 1: experience as a Jewish German woman made oddly very interested
Speaker 1: in America's racial dynamics. And this is this is something
Speaker 1: that's in that's fascinating because it's other countries are hearing
Speaker 1: the promise of the constitution too, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: It wasn't just people within the country. So it's gonna
Speaker 1: wait a minute, this don't make sense. They get here
Speaker 1: and they're like, but it says it's the document right here,
Speaker 1: that's yeah, and they're like, get out of here, you
Speaker 1: German German. So her interests in these whacka do American
Speaker 1: racial politics is what led her to Frederick Douglas's literal Door.
Speaker 1: She thought that translating his writing would help German readers
Speaker 1: really understand what it was like in the US. Diedrich
Speaker 1: writes that autoly was quote completely taken by Douglas's powerful
Speaker 1: male presence. Oh yeah, she she got this pretty much
Speaker 1: right away. As soon as he opened the door. She's like,
Speaker 1: oh my, so this might have been love at first
Speaker 1: sight for her. They started writing to each other frequently,
Speaker 1: as she arranged to translate his second autobiography, My Undage,
Speaker 1: My Freedom and starting in eighteen fifty seven, she spent
Speaker 1: every summer in the Douglas family home, working with him
Speaker 1: and tutoring his kids for twenty two years. Thanks to
Speaker 1: all the gossip that was spread about Julia Griffith's and
Speaker 1: they're alleged affair, Addily thought quote the Douglas marriage had
Speaker 1: been over long before she entered the scene, according to Diedrich,
Speaker 1: and she was quote unable or perhaps unwilling to see
Speaker 1: Anna as a fellow human being and a woman. And
Speaker 1: she wrote disdainfully of Anna's blackness and her illiteracy. And
Speaker 1: generally historians do agree that there was some kind of
Speaker 1: physical relationship going on between Frederick and uh and Addily um,
Speaker 1: that there was kind of an affair here. Yeah. Diedrich's
Speaker 1: book is based solely on letters that Addoly wrote to
Speaker 1: her sister. So she admits that it's it's most it's
Speaker 1: very unsided story, right, Um, But she was like, it's
Speaker 1: more than likely. And then one of Frederick Douglas's biographers
Speaker 1: also said, yeah, it's more than likely they were having
Speaker 1: a physical relation. She's so so okay. So even though
Speaker 1: she's in this woman's home right tutoring her children and
Speaker 1: and sleeping with her husband. She's got to add insult
Speaker 1: to injury. She's gotta kicker while she's down and start
Speaker 1: talking about her too. Yeah, it's being totally disdainful of Anna.
Speaker 1: She's ruining her life in this hospitality being extended to
Speaker 1: you that day. Like I picture Anna making her breakfast.
Speaker 1: That's what's making me mad, Like she's sucking giving her
Speaker 1: eggs and shit. I don't know. It just would make
Speaker 1: me furious. And I mean not to not to absolve
Speaker 1: Frederick of any guilt here either, because look, dude, like
Speaker 1: you just escaped in a fair scandal. What are you doing.
Speaker 1: You knew how damaging it was when someone made it up?
Speaker 1: What are you doing now doing it? Doing exactly and
Speaker 1: of course historically makes it more suspicious with Julia, right,
Speaker 1: Oh well he did do with Audily, So why not Julie.
Speaker 1: You know what I mean, there's only people like Frederick.
Speaker 1: I was defending you. I was defending you. I know
Speaker 1: you've got a lot going on, but respect your wife, please, geez.
Speaker 1: But that seemed to track for Addily. She sort of
Speaker 1: had a lot of contempt for most people. She really
Speaker 1: just a lot better than most people, especially apparently the
Speaker 1: wives of the men that she to sleep with exactly
Speaker 1: so addily not my favorite person in this story, I'll
Speaker 1: say that. Well. Meanwhile, Frederick is dealing with some even
Speaker 1: bigger drama than what's going on in his house, because
Speaker 1: in March of eighteen fifty nine, he took a meeting
Speaker 1: with the radical abolitionist John Brown to discuss emancipation. A
Speaker 1: while later, John Brown stayed at Frederick's house shortly before
Speaker 1: he led his famous raid on Harper's Ferry, and he
Speaker 1: even formed some of his plans at while he was
Speaker 1: staying with Frederick Douglas, and at some point he Frederick
Speaker 1: Douglas admitted to this meeting years later. Years later, but
Speaker 1: it turned out that he had met with John Brown
Speaker 1: in like an abandoned stone quarry at night or something.
Speaker 1: John Brown was like laying out all his plans to
Speaker 1: be like, we're gonna me in my secret six over here,
Speaker 1: going to raid Harper's Ferry Arsenal, We're going to arm
Speaker 1: all the slaves and we're gonna incite a rebellion you
Speaker 1: in bro you know. And Frederick Douglas was like, no,
Speaker 1: I am not in that sounds He said the plan
Speaker 1: was suicidal. Yeah, like no, I'm gonna nope right out
Speaker 1: of that proposition, and John Brown went on to do
Speaker 1: what John Brown did. But after the raid went down
Speaker 1: in October of eighteen fifty nine, Frederick was accused of
Speaker 1: both supporting John Brown and of not supporting John Brown.
Speaker 1: Own enough classics, So if you think all the wishy
Speaker 1: washiness of today is anything new, it's not. We've been
Speaker 1: obnoxious forever. Um. He was almost arrested in Virginia for
Speaker 1: playing a part in the raid, even though again he
Speaker 1: was not there um, which could have led to his execution. Um.
Speaker 1: So he had to flee to Canada for a little while.
Speaker 1: He actually stayed with Audily in Hoboken for a minute,
Speaker 1: like while he was hiding from the law, and then
Speaker 1: he moved. He went on up to Canada before then
Speaker 1: going on to a previously planned lecture tour in Scotland,
Speaker 1: so he was safe while he was over there. But tragically,
Speaker 1: in eighteen sixty, only a few days before her eleventh birthday,
Speaker 1: Annie Douglas died and Frederick canceled the rest of his
Speaker 1: tour and he went home. He traveled through Canada to
Speaker 1: avoid arrest, and after Annie's death, Anna Murray was also
Speaker 1: often in ill health. Yeah, and I mean, I'll say,
Speaker 1: I guess it's speculation station a little bit, but I'm
Speaker 1: thinking about Anna. She's at home all the time, right,
Speaker 1: like she's she's taking care of the house stuff, She's
Speaker 1: got her her kids there. I mean, this girl is
Speaker 1: ten years old. She's barely seeing anyone else. People come
Speaker 1: through in the underground railroad, they come and go just
Speaker 1: as quickly. You know. She's she's got her groups that
Speaker 1: she's organizing with, but she spends so much time at home.
Speaker 1: Frederick's Common and going. He's barely over there. And then
Speaker 1: these these people out there talking shit about her and
Speaker 1: her family. She's got a woman who sometimes staying at
Speaker 1: her house talking shit about her. Like I'm saying, her
Speaker 1: kids were probably also like her best friends in a
Speaker 1: little bit, in a little way, Yeah, I can see
Speaker 1: that at very least the center of her child. Definitely,
Speaker 1: it would be just really sad. Now. Also in the
Speaker 1: year eighteen sixty, a Republican candidate named are you Abraham Lincoln? Oh? Abe?
Speaker 1: Is that you? He won the presidential election and he
Speaker 1: was running on the platform that was anti slavery expansion.
Speaker 1: So the party at the time wasn't really trying to
Speaker 1: end slavery outright everywhere. They were just going to keep
Speaker 1: it from being legal in new territories like Missouri. Partly
Speaker 1: because slavery, like we said, just wasn't really popular at
Speaker 1: this time outside of some loud, heavy pockets, you know,
Speaker 1: predominantly in the South, but surely throughout the whole country.
Speaker 1: A lot of people were coming around the idea. They're like,
Speaker 1: maybe this isn't so good. But also partly because this
Speaker 1: was going to give the North larger representation than the
Speaker 1: Southern states in Congress and the electoral College. The Southern
Speaker 1: states didn't like that because that was going to impede
Speaker 1: them from passing all the pro slavery legislation that they wanted.
Speaker 1: And in fact, of course, they threatened to succeed if
Speaker 1: Republicans won the election. So that's what they did, forming
Speaker 1: the Confederate States and kicking off our very own Civil
Speaker 1: War in eighteen sixty one. Frederick spent the early part
Speaker 1: of the war advocating for allowing black soldiers into the army.
Speaker 1: Um he was kind of, listen, this war is about slavery,
Speaker 1: so you should allow black people to fight for their freedom.
Speaker 1: It only makes sense. He acted as an adviser to
Speaker 1: Lincoln throughout the war, advocating for suffrage and civil rights,
Speaker 1: and by eighteen sixty three, Congress passed a bill allowing
Speaker 1: black men into the army, and Frederick's own son, Charles,
Speaker 1: was the first black man to enlist in New York
Speaker 1: and his oldest son, Lewis, fought at the Battle of
Speaker 1: Fort Wagner, and Frederick Jr. Served as a recruiter. So
Speaker 1: he was willing to put his kids up for this,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean? Like he was like, I'm
Speaker 1: not just talking, I mean it. And on January one,
Speaker 1: eighteen sixty three, Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, which stated
Speaker 1: that slaves in the South were free and that ending
Speaker 1: slavery was the ultimate goal of winning the Civil War.
Speaker 1: And it was apparently a very good idea of Frederick's
Speaker 1: to allow black soldiers into the army because it gave
Speaker 1: the Union army a huge edge. They had a ton
Speaker 1: more people than the South did, and the South, the
Speaker 1: Confederate States, were aid to do it because they would
Speaker 1: then admit that, oh, you're like people capable and so on,
Speaker 1: so they were afraid to do it. So it really
Speaker 1: gave the North like quite an edge. Plus you like
Speaker 1: bond with your fellow soldiers a lot too, So probably
Speaker 1: a lot of people would come back from the war
Speaker 1: going like, wait this, my buddy has to go back
Speaker 1: into slavery now exactly, were like, you can't mingle that way.
Speaker 1: It changes everything. They knew that because it's such a
Speaker 1: tenuous bullshit that it was all bolts on. So it's like,
Speaker 1: we're afraid, and it literally helped them lose, right, And
Speaker 1: you also probably get the edge too of the fact
Speaker 1: that you've got not only all these additional bodies on
Speaker 1: your side, but who have a serious steak. You know.
Speaker 1: I wonder about this sometimes because I think we've talked
Speaker 1: before about how despite the pro slavery movement in the South,
Speaker 1: how many Southerners actually had the wealth to own slaves themselves.
Speaker 1: You know. So I imagine there's a lot of like
Speaker 1: poor kids drafted into the army who don't don't even
Speaker 1: really understand what they're fighting for, uh, you know, and
Speaker 1: so they probably don't care as much as you've got
Speaker 1: people literally fighting for their freedom. Yeah. Absolutely, yeah. So
Speaker 1: even so during the presidential elections in eighteen sixty four,
Speaker 1: Frederick Douglas supported a different candidate because he was disappointed
Speaker 1: that Lincoln didn't support black men's right to vote. But
Speaker 1: after Lincoln was assassinated in April of eighteen sixty five,
Speaker 1: Frederick was chosen to deliver the keynote speech at the
Speaker 1: unveiling of the Emancipation Memorial, and without pulling any punches,
Speaker 1: because you know, Frederick don't pull punches, he both criticized
Speaker 1: and praised Lincoln, calling him quote the white Man's President
Speaker 1: and saying that he should have gotten into the cause
Speaker 1: of emancipation earlier in his life, but that no one
Speaker 1: black or white could deny that he had put his
Speaker 1: money where his mouth was to eliminate the institution of slavery.
Speaker 1: He said, quote the old Mr. Lincoln shared the prejudices
Speaker 1: of his white fellow countrymen against the negro It is
Speaker 1: hardly necessary to say that, in his heart of hearts,
Speaker 1: he loathed and hated slavery. Douglas got a standing ovation
Speaker 1: for his speech, and Lincoln's widow, Mary Todd, even gave
Speaker 1: Frederick Lincoln's favorite walking stick. It's pretty cool that he
Speaker 1: got that, even when he was being so real about
Speaker 1: the man himself. You know, I think that's cool. That
Speaker 1: shows you what a great speechmaker he must have been,
Speaker 1: because he was able to really draw lines, you know,
Speaker 1: very carefully. Now, during the war, Oddily and Frederick had
Speaker 1: still been collaborating or publishing articles in her German paper
Speaker 1: and his American one urging the country to end slavery
Speaker 1: and integrate the army and all those all those things
Speaker 1: that he was advocating for. But Addily, in letters to
Speaker 1: her sister, seemed hundred percent certain that as soon as
Speaker 1: emancipation was achieved, it would mean that Frederick Douglas was
Speaker 1: no longer in the public eye, and that would mean
Speaker 1: that he could leave his wife Anna and finally marry her. Wow,
Speaker 1: she had like a whole map drawn in her head
Speaker 1: that I don't think he knew about um. But she
Speaker 1: was wrong about that, because the fight was not over
Speaker 1: with the Emancipation Proclamation. Surprised the Emancipation Proclamation didn't end
Speaker 1: the problems for black people in America. Now, in eighteen
Speaker 1: sixty five, the Thirteenth Amendment outlawed slavery quote except as
Speaker 1: punishment for a crime. That left that little line of problems.
Speaker 1: Some evil crawled through that loop. In eighteen sixty eight,
Speaker 1: the Fourteenth Amendment guaranteed citizenship to former enslaved people, and
Speaker 1: in eighteen seventy the Fifteenth Amendment ensured voting rights, so
Speaker 1: civil rights for black men at least were codified into
Speaker 1: law because women still couldn't vote, you know. Um, But
Speaker 1: all that progress meant that white supremacists acted very quickly
Speaker 1: to curb all these right as much as they could
Speaker 1: with restrictions. Other bullshits groups such as the Ku Klux,
Speaker 1: Klan and other violent insurgent groups formed very quickly at
Speaker 1: this time as well. The reconstruction period was leading swiftly
Speaker 1: in the direction of reasserting white supremacy and disenfranchising black citizens. So,
Speaker 1: of course what happened about ten years after the war ended,
Speaker 1: we were voting for nothing but assholes. So Frederick was like,
Speaker 1: I still got a lot of work to do here.
Speaker 1: The fight's not over with just ending slavery. There's clearly
Speaker 1: a lot more going on. So he conferred with President
Speaker 1: Ulysses S. Grant about race issues, um, supporting his candidacy
Speaker 1: and encouraging him to sign the Civil Rights Act of
Speaker 1: eighteen seventy one, which is also called the Klan Act,
Speaker 1: and other enforcement acts that basically allowed the president to
Speaker 1: suspend Habeas Corpus and send in the troops to suppress
Speaker 1: all this white violence against black people and to ensure
Speaker 1: their rights to vote and to hold office. And all
Speaker 1: this protecting of civil rights for black people made Grant
Speaker 1: pretty unpopular with a lot of shitty white people at
Speaker 1: the time, but Frederick and his his friends and family
Speaker 1: were and his associates were big fans. They wrote about
Speaker 1: Grants that African Americans quote, will ever cherish a grateful
Speaker 1: remembrance of his name, fame, and great services. Well there
Speaker 1: you go. Now. In eighteen seventy two, Frederick became the
Speaker 1: first black person to be nominated for vice president of
Speaker 1: the United States when Victoria Woodhull in the Equal Rights
Speaker 1: Party ran for president and selected him as her running
Speaker 1: mate without his prior knowledge or consent. So he wakes
Speaker 1: up one day it is like, I'm I'm what, I'm
Speaker 1: running for vice president? Do you think? Like like stretching on?
Speaker 1: And then he opened the newspaper and oh, Frederick Douglas
Speaker 1: is the running with Frederick Ducklas. I'm Frederick Tucklas, speas
Speaker 1: me exactly. Well, that same year, Frederick and Anna's home
Speaker 1: in Rochester burned down, and this was likely due to arson,
Speaker 1: of course, all that white violence we were just talking about.
Speaker 1: Most of their belongings were burned, including the only complete
Speaker 1: archive of his north Star paper. They moved after that
Speaker 1: to Washington, d C. And Anna continued to manage their
Speaker 1: home while Frederick continued to lecture and advocate. Audily started
Speaker 1: to argue with him about the future and about his children,
Speaker 1: who she thought were feckless and they had I mean,
Speaker 1: we will say they did rely on his financial support,
Speaker 1: you know, for years, for a long time, well into
Speaker 1: their adult lives. But attention and estrangement sprang up between
Speaker 1: Frederick and addly after this, in eight seventy six, Audily
Speaker 1: went on a European trip, hoping Frederick would just follow along,
Speaker 1: but he was immersed in his life and his work
Speaker 1: in the US, and he made no move to join her. Also,
Speaker 1: he was married to Anna. You know, She's like, I've
Speaker 1: just leave Anne. He was like, okay, bye, I'm going.
Speaker 1: Are you sure doors open? You can follow, There's an
Speaker 1: extra seat. I'll leave. I'll really do it. I bet
Speaker 1: she would write him a lot and be like, today
Speaker 1: I'm in Perry. You want to join music? Okay. In
Speaker 1: eighteen seventy seven, Frederick and Anna moved into Cedar Hill,
Speaker 1: which is the estate that was the family's final home
Speaker 1: and where the Frederick Douglas National Historic Site is now located.
Speaker 1: And Frederick was appointed the Recorder of Deeds in Washington,
Speaker 1: d c. Which he accepted because it's secured his family's
Speaker 1: financial feature. And then in August of eighteen eighty two,
Speaker 1: after a series of strokes, Anna Murray Douglas passed away
Speaker 1: and Frederick was by all accounts devastated by this loss.
Speaker 1: So if anyone's trying to act like he didn't love
Speaker 1: his wife, yeah, he definitely did. Um. He made no
Speaker 1: attempt to contact Addie overseas, but he did be friend
Speaker 1: his new next door neighbor, a woman named Helen Pitts.
Speaker 1: Helen was the daughter of Gideon and Jane Pitts. They
Speaker 1: were abolitionists and suffragists, and after the Civil War, Helen
Speaker 1: taught at a school in Virginia that educated black men
Speaker 1: and women, and she caused some local controversy when she
Speaker 1: accused residents there of abusing her students, and she got
Speaker 1: them arrested for it. So Virginians were like grumble grumble,
Speaker 1: how dare a white lady do that, you know? And
Speaker 1: that's when she moved home with her parents next door
Speaker 1: to Frederick Douglas, and she started co editing a women's
Speaker 1: rights magazine called The Alpha. So Frederick hired Helen to
Speaker 1: work in the deeds office as his secretary not long
Speaker 1: after they met, and in four he resigned that office
Speaker 1: and he married Helen a year and a half after
Speaker 1: Anna's death. Helen was twenty years younger than him, but
Speaker 1: nobody cared about that. They cared about the fact that
Speaker 1: he was black and she was white, and that really
Speaker 1: messed with their brains. They couldn't handle it. Even though
Speaker 1: her parents were abolitionists and admired Frederick Douglas, they still
Speaker 1: did not like her marrying a black man, and they
Speaker 1: stopped speaking to her for the rest of her life.
Speaker 1: And yes, support Frederick Douglas not like that. Even Frederick's
Speaker 1: own children didn't like this marriage. They thought that it
Speaker 1: was a repudiation of their mother Anna, which is not uncommon.
Speaker 1: I think sometimes when a parent remarries, Sure, I have
Speaker 1: to wonder if they knew anything about oddly right and
Speaker 1: how they felt about her as a repudiation because Anna
Speaker 1: was still alive when he was seeing there. So it's like,
Speaker 1: which is worse. I'm sure they didn't liked surely, or
Speaker 1: they just didn't know, you know what I mean. But
Speaker 1: they were being tutored by her for years, and I'm
Speaker 1: like they had they knew her a little. I mean,
Speaker 1: I wanted if they heard any of these rumors anyway,
Speaker 1: But regardless of what anybody else thought, Helen and Frederick
Speaker 1: went ahead with it anyway. Helen said, quote, love came
Speaker 1: to me, and I was not afraid to marry the
Speaker 1: man I loved because of his color. And Frederick Douglas commented, quote,
Speaker 1: this proves I am impartial. My first wife was the
Speaker 1: color of my mother and the second the color of
Speaker 1: my father. But what about Addally, Well, she is in
Speaker 1: Europe fighting for a claim to her sister's estate when
Speaker 1: she heard the news about this little union, and it
Speaker 1: must be said, this is a bad time for Addily.
Speaker 1: She had just been diagnosed with breast cancer, so she
Speaker 1: is already in ill health when she heard that her
Speaker 1: lover of twenty six years was not ever going to
Speaker 1: marry her, and had in fact married another white woman
Speaker 1: twenty years younger than her. And so she responded dramatically.
Speaker 1: The following August, she went to a Paris park and
Speaker 1: drink a vial of cyanide and died by suicide. All
Speaker 1: her letters from Frederick had been burned, and she left
Speaker 1: him the income of hert dollar state, which let's see,
Speaker 1: if I could pull the calculator at again, that would
Speaker 1: be hard three hundred and sixty one thousand, five hundred
Speaker 1: and nine dollars today, so not an inconsiderable amount of money. Money.
Speaker 1: So she left him this income in her will and
Speaker 1: stipulated that it should be delivered in semi annual installments
Speaker 1: to him for the rest of his life. Now, some
Speaker 1: sources paint this as like a sign of her undying
Speaker 1: love and devotion to Frederick Douglas, perhaps his cause is
Speaker 1: or whatever. Um Maria Diedrich writes that it was quote
Speaker 1: a more substantial way of haunting him. Oh yeah, I guess.
Speaker 1: Just again, it's all based on her book. So the
Speaker 1: character that she has definitely put together of this woman
Speaker 1: is not flattering, right, And I kind of buy that
Speaker 1: that She was like, I'm just going to make him
Speaker 1: have to look at my name every few months for
Speaker 1: the rest of his life. He's going to have to
Speaker 1: remember me. I wonder if she was not well. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, she was definitely, like we said before, like
Speaker 1: was kind of living in a different reality. She had
Speaker 1: a very different perspective on their relationship than he clearly had.
Speaker 1: And I don't obviously we don't know. We can only
Speaker 1: speculations station about it. But it doesn't seem that he
Speaker 1: maybe let her on. He probably didn't even have time
Speaker 1: to make her think that their relationship was something other
Speaker 1: than it was. It seems like he was very clear, like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to Europe with you or anything. But no,
Speaker 1: she did struggle with depression. She had had suicidal ideation
Speaker 1: in her past before, so that's definitely true. She was
Speaker 1: not like stable in that way. I guess um, But yeah,
Speaker 1: I do question it. I'm like, I guess a lover
Speaker 1: of twenty six years. It makes it seem like they
Speaker 1: were together every day maybe or something. But again, she's
Speaker 1: only spent summers at his house. I wonder if they
Speaker 1: even did a lot at his house, because I was
Speaker 1: right there as kids are there. I wonder if that
Speaker 1: made a difference or not um or if it was
Speaker 1: really sporadic and it was just like when you can.
Speaker 1: We did, but it wasn't like a priority to Frederick Defris.
Speaker 1: You know, I don't think it was. She was like
Speaker 1: a major, like he's like, oh, I gotta make time
Speaker 1: for Oddily today. Drew Gilpin Faustum, in his review of
Speaker 1: Diedrich's book for The New York Times, wrote quote, Oddly
Speaker 1: austing is in Diedrich's portrait, an interesting but hardly likable figure.
Speaker 1: An intellectual elitist, she had little time for those she
Speaker 1: regarded as her inferiors. This rendered her contemptuous of many
Speaker 1: men and almost all other women. Yet for all her
Speaker 1: professed commitments to romantic individualism and female freedom, she ended
Speaker 1: up the victim of her own dependence on a man,
Speaker 1: and of her longing for the very conventions of marriage
Speaker 1: that her words and act had so long scorned. Which
Speaker 1: is like a sad note, but she had. Maria Diedrich
Speaker 1: had also noted that when she was having the affair
Speaker 1: back in Germany with the famous actor very similar, she
Speaker 1: was like, oh, I'm his equal partner, but actually she
Speaker 1: was giving him most of her money, and everything was
Speaker 1: about him and what he wanted, so she was still
Speaker 1: kind of subsuming her whole life in the man and
Speaker 1: so it's sort of like she really wanted to be
Speaker 1: this like rebellious figure and she lived her life like
Speaker 1: she was like above everyone. But she really wanted some
Speaker 1: really traditional stuff. And it's too bad that she didn't
Speaker 1: feel like she could do both. I guess I'm sad
Speaker 1: for her that she felt like she had to act
Speaker 1: like a bitch in order to be a different type
Speaker 1: of woman or better quote unquote better type of woman. Right.
Speaker 1: It seems like she's one of those people, like a
Speaker 1: woman who had to put other women down so that
Speaker 1: she could feel superior to the idea of what women are,
Speaker 1: you know, which is no, no, no help. Yes great. Yeah. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: Frederick Douglas and Helen had a very happy marriage. They
Speaker 1: had similar intellectual interests and they shared a commitment to
Speaker 1: women's suffrage. She played piano, he played violin, and they
Speaker 1: both played croquet at their home in Cedar Hill. They
Speaker 1: took a trip to Europe together, which must have piste
Speaker 1: off Autoly from beyond the Grave, right, I mean I
Speaker 1: just saw like a dabbing like, oh, now you want
Speaker 1: to go. Since Frederick had been appointed a U S
Speaker 1: Marshal for d C. In eighteen seventy seven, he attended
Speaker 1: presidential Galler receptions and she accompanied him. Frederick wrote to
Speaker 1: a friend that the marriage quote brought strong criticism, but
Speaker 1: there is peace and happiness within. On February Frederick Douglas
Speaker 1: attended a meeting of the National Council of Women, and
Speaker 1: they brought him up to a platform and gave him
Speaker 1: a standing ovation. And like, everybody knows how great Frederick
Speaker 1: Douglas is the cause of women's suffrage. But that night
Speaker 1: he had a mass of heart attack and died at
Speaker 1: the age of seventy seven. I just love that on
Speaker 1: his last night he got a standing ovation from everybody
Speaker 1: for his amazing life and all he did. Like I
Speaker 1: just the timing of that's nice to me. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: would love it. Hope it all work it out so
Speaker 1: I would get a standing ovation on my last hour.
Speaker 1: Now we'll be worried every time I get a standing ovation.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, is this Fortunately, don't get any standing ovations.
Speaker 1: I'll give you a standing ovation every day when I
Speaker 1: stand up out of bed and I clap and I
Speaker 1: say get up. That doesn't count, that does not count.
Speaker 1: But then you stand up and I cheer sarcastically for you.
Speaker 1: That still doesn't feel like it's definitely not the same.
Speaker 1: That's what Frederick Douglas Scott, you getting out of bed.
Speaker 1: I guess I got a Douglas to get Frederick Douglas
Speaker 1: claps yes, so yes. Frederick Douglas was hell the in
Speaker 1: state in d C. Thousands of people, of course attended
Speaker 1: his funeral. He came to see his body laying in
Speaker 1: state and everything and pay their respects, but they laid
Speaker 1: him to rest in Rochester, where he had made his
Speaker 1: home for most of his life at the Mount Hope Cemetery,
Speaker 1: right next to Anna Murray. And he had left Cedar
Speaker 1: Hill to Helen, his wife of the past eleven years,
Speaker 1: but there weren't enough witnesses to validate that bequest, so
Speaker 1: they said it did not count and she did not
Speaker 1: get the home out right, And so Helen suggested to
Speaker 1: the Douglas children that they should set Cedar Hill aside
Speaker 1: as a memorial to their father and like have it
Speaker 1: managed by a board of trustees and stuff. So it
Speaker 1: wasn't like about her personally gaining from It's like, I
Speaker 1: won't touch it, you know, it's just for him. But
Speaker 1: the kids who again. You know had been relying on
Speaker 1: dou on Frederick Douglas income, I guess a lot, and
Speaker 1: his name probably too for support. They just wanted to
Speaker 1: sell the estate and divide the money equally amongst them.
Speaker 1: So get this, Helen borrowed a bunch of money and
Speaker 1: bought the place herself to pay off the Airs and
Speaker 1: the other family members. So she had to raise the
Speaker 1: money to buy what had already been bequeathed to her. Outrageous,
Speaker 1: but she devoted the rest of her life to planning
Speaker 1: and establishing the Frederick Douglas Memorial and Historical Association. She
Speaker 1: got Congress to pass a law incorporating the association and
Speaker 1: worked to raise money to maintain the estate, lecturing throughout
Speaker 1: the Northeast for years. But near the end of her life,
Speaker 1: contributions were falling off. Helen was in poor health and
Speaker 1: it looked like her life's work preserving Frederick's life's work
Speaker 1: wasn't going to pan out. But a prominent black reverend
Speaker 1: named Francis Grimkey, the reverend who had married Helen and Frederick,
Speaker 1: suggested that she sell the property and create college scholarships
Speaker 1: in her and Frederick's names, and initially she agreed, but
Speaker 1: she said only at the scholarships were only in Frederick's
Speaker 1: name and not in hers, which I get, which is,
Speaker 1: you know, as a sign of respect. It's like about
Speaker 1: preserving this great man's legacy. I also hate that instinct
Speaker 1: to write yourself out. She was like, well, don't put
Speaker 1: me in there. And I'm like, well, but you did
Speaker 1: stuff no worries if not. It was called the no
Speaker 1: Worries if not Scholarship. But in nineteen o three Helen
Speaker 1: changed her mind. She's pretty much nearing the end of
Speaker 1: her life at this point, she knew it, and she
Speaker 1: wrote to Reverend grimm Key begging for his help if
Speaker 1: the mortgage was not paid off before she died. She wrote, quote,
Speaker 1: if the colored people think so little of Mr Douglas
Speaker 1: and his great services that they cannot raise this small sum,
Speaker 1: it will stand as an everlasting disgrace and reproach to
Speaker 1: the race. See to it that you do not allow
Speaker 1: my plan for Cedar Hill to fail? Are you strong
Speaker 1: word there? But you know she's desperate, she's about to die.
Speaker 1: She's like, please pay for this, come on now. So
Speaker 1: I wonder if he was reading it, like why do
Speaker 1: you get to this last it was just race. You
Speaker 1: can still be racist when you're trying to fight for
Speaker 1: Frederick Douglas's legacy. You know, she had a lot to unpack,
Speaker 1: all right, we were just learning about now. But after
Speaker 1: Helen died in nineteen o three, she was buried next
Speaker 1: to Frederick in Mount Hope Cemetery as well, and the
Speaker 1: mortgage for Cedar Hill was reduced from five thousand, five
Speaker 1: hundred dollars to four thousand dollars, and the National Association
Speaker 1: of Colored Women, led by Mary b. Tealbert of Buffalo,
Speaker 1: raised the money to buy Cedar Hill. It's now administered
Speaker 1: by the National Park Service and they give tours of
Speaker 1: his home. It houses memorabilia like Lincoln's favorite walking stick,
Speaker 1: and informs guests of his contributions to freedom. Just as
Speaker 1: Helen was hoping, that's awesome, which I love. So the boy,
Speaker 1: the whole group just came together raise the money, which
Speaker 1: is they and they and they're probably like not because
Speaker 1: of what Helen said, which we found a little condescendant,
Speaker 1: but because we wanted to, which I mean, that's that's
Speaker 1: what really struck me reading this story or learning his story. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, his daughter, Rosetta's brig other historians like leaf
Speaker 1: Out and Rose O'Keefe and more. You know, we're saying
Speaker 1: there really is no Frederick Douglas without Anna Murray, that
Speaker 1: she does not get enough credit for the part she
Speaker 1: played in his legacy. And we talked about that a
Speaker 1: little bit through the episode, that she was, you know,
Speaker 1: making the space for him to build his career. He
Speaker 1: couldn't have done it without her. Plus she got him
Speaker 1: out of slavery, also pretty important part of the story.
Speaker 1: Um I would add that women in general didn't get
Speaker 1: enough credit for the part they played in Frederick's story
Speaker 1: because it wasn't just Anna, right. His mother, for st
Speaker 1: of all, gave him a great sense of pride, a
Speaker 1: sense of himself as to being able to teach himself
Speaker 1: and learn and have the capacity to learn. I think
Speaker 1: his mom was a really strong shape in his in
Speaker 1: his mind, see you know what I mean. I think
Speaker 1: she really was important in his development as a kid.
Speaker 1: And then of course Anna Murray helped him escape. She
Speaker 1: supported financially, women in England raised the money for him
Speaker 1: to buy his freedom and for him to start his
Speaker 1: paper they've you know started. They basically financed his startup.
Speaker 1: Julia Griffiths kept that paper afloat by handling the financials
Speaker 1: and raising money audibly, even though she's a bit problematic,
Speaker 1: shared his words with an entire new audience. She was
Speaker 1: opening them up in a whole other countries and translating
Speaker 1: his work into many different languages and to a whole
Speaker 1: other language. She also housed him when he was on
Speaker 1: the run from the law, and then Helen worked to
Speaker 1: preserve his legacy for the rest of generations so we
Speaker 1: would know anything about him and all the work that
Speaker 1: he did. And women raised the money to pay for
Speaker 1: that preservation. So it's just women throughout his life. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that were like, this guy is getting ship done, let's
Speaker 1: help him out. And I think if without those women,
Speaker 1: I'm not sure he would have gotten as far as
Speaker 1: he right now. They really were the wind beneath his wings. Well,
Speaker 1: and you can even look at it as not so
Speaker 1: much as like women supporting Frederick Douglas, but women who
Speaker 1: wanted to get something done had to find a guy
Speaker 1: to be their face for those things to get done.
Speaker 1: So it was a way for women to do things
Speaker 1: that they were trying to accomplish, sort of just like
Speaker 1: a you know, borrowing Frederick Douglas's persona, UM to be
Speaker 1: able to get things done that they were trying to
Speaker 1: get done. Yeah, pretty phenomenal. Well, and even a shitty
Speaker 1: slave owning white woman is the reason you learned how
Speaker 1: to read in the first place, So I guess that's
Speaker 1: true too. I'm just like, it was just hundreds of
Speaker 1: women that that really ensured his legacy. And I'm not
Speaker 1: trying to take away from Frederick Douglas. Oh yeah, no,
Speaker 1: not at all. Obviously we're talking about it. Very intelligent
Speaker 1: and brave and cool dude, right, who did a lot
Speaker 1: of great things. But the obscured part is all these
Speaker 1: ladies that were standing behind him. It wasn't It wasn't
Speaker 1: just well, you know, behind every great man is one
Speaker 1: great woman. Behind him were hundreds of women, all working
Speaker 1: really hard and doing their little piece, and that's what
Speaker 1: they got, you know, to contribute. I mean, you see
Speaker 1: so often in history in general, that one great person
Speaker 1: is often many great people. UM. And then how often
Speaker 1: in history the women in that circle are not studied,
Speaker 1: cast aside or or even like in um. In a
Speaker 1: Clementine Churchill's case, like didn't feel like she should make
Speaker 1: a big fuss about what she was doing to help.
Speaker 1: You know, so for years nobody knew about it because
Speaker 1: even she wasn't being vocal about it. Um. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: it's it's really amazing kind of what we're seeing. And
Speaker 1: I think it's cool. I mean again, because people now
Speaker 1: have to come home and cook the meal and wash
Speaker 1: the dishes and make sure the laundry is done. And
Speaker 1: I'm get tired, and they're like, man, I used to
Speaker 1: write screenplays. What happened to that? I'll tell you what happened.
Speaker 1: You don't have an ANNIMALI that allowed you that that space.
Speaker 1: So anyway, UM, I just loved learning more about all
Speaker 1: these ladies and his this crazy oddly it's really great,
Speaker 1: Like just now that sexism is over, so we can
Speaker 1: look at these things in a different way. Yes, sexism
Speaker 1: is done. Actually, I don't know if you guys, if
Speaker 1: you heard they made the announcement yesterday sexism over. Very exciting.
Speaker 1: Algorithm should have fed me that one, but I missed it. No,
Speaker 1: they didn't want to get you all emotional about it.
Speaker 1: You know. They were like, she'll get all riled up.
Speaker 1: We can't tell your sexism is over. Should we get
Speaker 1: all emotional about it. Jeez. Oh, you never know, it
Speaker 1: might be that time of the month. I got and
Speaker 1: I throw my phone across the room. Well dessert, oh man.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I hope you enjoyed this story as much
Speaker 1: as I did. I'm learning about Frederick Douglas amazing, man.
Speaker 1: I love learning about all these women standing beside him
Speaker 1: and around him and everywhere around him. Get making that
Speaker 1: ship happen, And I hope you did too. Definitely, please
Speaker 1: reach out to us and tell us what you thought.
Speaker 1: Our email is ridic Romance at gmail dot com right,
Speaker 1: or you can find us on social media on Twitter
Speaker 1: and Instagram. I'm at oh great, It's Eli, I'm at
Speaker 1: Danamite Boom. And of course the show is at ridic Romance,
Speaker 1: so follow along. Hey, have you dropped us review on
Speaker 1: Apple podcast yet? Should totally do that. It's a really
Speaker 1: good way to give yourself a little emotional boost for
Speaker 1: the day. You'll feel great about it, and we'll be
Speaker 1: back theater this week with more exciting episodes and we'll
Speaker 1: catch it in can't Wait. Love you by so long. Friends,
Speaker 1: It's time to go. Thanks so listening to our show.
Speaker 1: Tell your friends neighbor's uncles in dance to listen to
Speaker 1: a show ridiculous roll dance m