Frederick Douglass

At Congressional Cemetery.

This bronze statue of Frederick Douglass is a part of the Mathew Brady Memorial in Congressional Cemetery.  Larry West commissioned Italian artists to create statues of Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglas for the Mathew Brady Memorial.  

(For a short biography of Frederick Douglas see The Biographical Dictionary of America, Harper's Encyclopædia of American History or Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography)

Douglass is  shown standing holding a cane and copy of the Emancipation Proclamation. 

The Proclamation echoes the statue of Lincoln, who displays the Emancipation Proclamation edited for readability. 

A Proclamation.

...all persons held as slaves...

Shall be then,

Thenceforward and forever free.

The cane appears to be the one given to Douglass by Mary Todd Lincoln after Lincoln's death. 

The cane is on display at Douglass' home, Cedar Hill in Anacostia.

The caption reads: “Mary Todd Lincoln, after the President's assassination, sent one of his walking sticks to Douglass in recognition of his recruiting efforts.”  Douglass sent a letter to Mary Lincoln  thanking her for “the favorite walking staff of your late lamented husband the honored and venerated President of the United States.”

On the  Mathew Brady Memorial, both Lincoln and Douglas seem to be looking at the picture of Anna Murray Douglas and its explanatory plaque. 

Photo by Devry Becker Jones, HMdb. (Modified by ACB)

Anna Murray-Douglass

For Anna & Frederick Douglass, their work, home, & life centered on abolition, & fair treatment & respect for African Americans.

Anna met Frederick, an enslaved 17-year-old in 1838. They fell in love; she encouraged, & financed his flight north where they reunited & married, on plan. From 1847-72, Anna ran their Rochester Underground Railroad home, raised 5 children, making money as a cook & shoe binder. Their Rochester home was burned down in 1872.

Anna, a free, Underground RR stationmaster, gave freedom seekers food & clothing, often while Frederick was away. He was a strategist, speaker, organizer, publisher, & “agitator”---in Women's, US Colored Troops', & civil rights. Without Anna, he may not have been any of this.

They later moved to Washington, DC, buying the “Cedar Hill” home; only 2 miles from this spot.

In 1882, Anna's second stroke was fatal. In 1895, Frederick died from probably stroke. Only 11 months before his photographer, Mathew Brady. in 1882, Frederick said: “Mother was the post in the center of my house, & held us together.”

 Anna died on August 4, 1882. Frederick Douglass married Helen Pitts on January 24, 1884, after what  Wikipedia describes as “almost a year and a half of depression.”  The National Republican in an article entitled “A Black Man's Bride” described Helen as “Young, Attractive, Intelligent and White.” 

Helen Pitts Douglas

(Wikipedia)

See Right is of No Sex. Truth is of No Color by Heather Baukney Hansen.

Douglass joked that “This proves I am impartial. My first wife was the color of my mother and the second, the color of my father.” It was Helen who founded the Frederick Douglass Memorial and Historical Association and preserved Cedar Hill.

See other entries in the Portrait Gallery for Frederick Douglass and his home Cedar Hill in the  Landmarks Blog.