Black History Month: Frederick Douglass in Rochester

In honor of Black History Month, this episode will delve into the life and work of Frederick Douglass during his time living in Rochester and discuss the legacy of Douglass today. To help us understand this important story, we welcome very special guest Hon. Malik D. Evans, Mayor of the City of Rochester, NY.

Markers of focus: Douglass Home, Monroe County

Interviewees: Hon. Malik D. Evans, Mayor of the City of Rochester.

A New York Minute in History is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio and the New York State Museum, with support from the William G. Pomeroy Foundation. This episode was produced by David Hopper. Our executive producer is Tina Renick.  Our theme is “Begrudge” by Darby.

Photographs courtesy of the William G. Pomeroy Foundation.

Frederick Douglass, 1879. Photograph by Frank W. Legg, National Archives and Records Administration.

Hon. Malik D. Evans, Mayor of the City of Rochester. Photo courtesy of the City of Rochester.

Further Reading:

Shayla Martin, “2 Black Heroes, 2 Cities in New York: A Journey into the Past,” The New York Times, 2024.

Frederick Douglass, The Frederick Douglass Collection: A Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, My Bondage and My Freedom, 2023.

David W. Blight, Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom, 2020.

Victoria Sandwick Schmitt, “Rochester’s Frederick Douglass: Part One and Part Two, Rochester History, 2005.

Teacher Resources:

The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History: Lesson Plans for Frederick Douglass

National Park Service: (H)our History Lesson: Frederick Douglass’s Life-long Fight for Justice and Equality.

PBS Learning Media: Becoming Frederick Douglass

Follow Along:

Devin Lander:

Welcome to A New York Minute in History I'm Devin Lander, the New York State Historian,

Lauren Roberts:

and I'm Lauren Roberts, the historian for Saratoga County. In honor of Black History Month, we're focusing on two markers for this episode, both located in the city of Rochester and both honoring the contributions of one man, Frederick Douglass. The first marker is located at 297 Alexander Street in the city of Rochester, and the text reads, Douglas home. Frederick and Anna Douglas lived in a home on this site with their five children, 1848 to 1851 welcomed freedom seekers on the Underground Railroad, the William G Pomeroy Foundation, 2018 the second marker is located at 271 Hamilton Street and is titled Douglas house. And the text reads, Frederick Douglass, noted abolitionist and orator, lived here with Sprague family. 1873 to 1874 owned a building for 32 years, William G Pomeroy Foundation, 2019, so both of these markers focus on the noted abolitionist orator and printer of the North Star, Frederick Douglass, and on this episode, we're going to take a look at his life and his influence, especially in the city of Rochester.

Devin:

And to do that, we spoke to Malik Evans, the Mayor of the City of Rochester.

Hon. Malik D. Evans:

So I'm Malik Evans. I'm the Mayor of the city of Rochester, and I grew up on a street in which Frederick Douglass owned a home the corner of bond in Hamilton. So it's great to be on, be on your show. And I'm a student of history. I love history, so any chance I get to talk about history, I like to take that opportunity. Well, my father was big into history, particularly African American history, and its effect that it had on America. So by the time I was probably 12 years old, I had read both of Frederick Douglass books. So Oh, wow. Became very aware of Frederick Douglass at an extremely early age, and also the elementary school that I went to, we knew that that was also near a site of where Frederick Douglass had lived, the house that actually was down the street from where I grew up. Grew up, we actually did become aware that that was a house that Frederick Douglass had lived in until I was older. So but, but the fact that he was in the area of the school that I would walk to every day, that that was cool. And then we knew he was buried in in Mount Hope cemetery. And then there was a in my neighborhood I grew up in. I grew up in a neighborhood where the statue was a Frederick Douglass in Rochester. So a lot of people don't know, but the first statue to an African American in America was to Frederick Douglass, and it was here, Eureka Lodge, number 36 back in the late 1800s commissioned that statue, and it was downtown, near the train station. At the time we had this major train station, and I mean, presidents came when the statue was unveiled. I mean Frederick Douglass was just really a major, major figure in Rochester history. So I was very, very much aware of Frederick Douglass growing up. There was a gentleman who's now probably close to in his 90s, Dr David Anderson, who actually would play Frederick Douglass when I was in elementary school. He would come to the school dressed as, you know, dressed as Frederick Douglass. So he's always been someone that is a that someone I looked up to as a hero, and His books were just amazing to me, that someone was able to write like that and not have a background in in schooling. I mean, he never PhD or or a master's degree in English, but you would think he would by however. When his writing was, you know, Rochester was, was a stop on the Underground Railroad. It was, it was a safer place to be than in the south, but it also had a strong abolitionist movement. I think that when he started writing his doing his newspaper here, which ran for years, the North Star, was published in Rochester for years that, you know, that kept him here, and people came through here. He had a great friendship with Susan B, Anthony, who was also here, I d B, wells, Barnett came through here. So Rochester was, was a place that all these people could come to and but it was also very strategically located, yeah. So I think that that helped him. John Brown. John Brown, who, you know, who was hung but was a big abolitionist. He came through here to meet and talk with Frederick Douglass and when John Brown was captured and hung, if you remember, Frederick Douglass left and went overseas for an entire year before he returned, before he returned back to Rochester. So I think it was just, you know, a place that was that that was comfortable, comfortable to him, and a place where he saw as a base of his work. You know, he's born in Cordova, Maryland, but if you look at the most amount of time that he spent, it's been in Rochester. So I always argue with my my fellow mayors in Baltimore or in Maryland, and I say, No, Fred, you go. Belongs to us. He might have been born in Maryland, but he spent more time in Rochester than any other place, and he's buried here, yeah. So you know that's what states our claim to Douglas.

Devin:

Yeah, I think we should talk a little bit about how Frederick Douglass ended up in Rochester, New York. Well, he was born into slavery in Maryland and Tuckahoe, Maryland, to be precise. And he was actually born Frederick, August, Washington, Bailey. His last name was not Douglas at the time, and he was born into slavery raised predominantly by his grandparents, because, as was a common practice during the time slave owners often sold off children's mothers or vice versa before the age of one, in many cases. So that happened to Frederick, his mother was sold off to other slave owners, and he was raised by his grandparents. He started out his enslavement as what was commonly known as a house slave. So he was six years old when he actually started laboring for his his owner and doing errands and odd jobs as as a child would be able to do eventually, Frederick's enslaver died, and he was inherited as property by this person's brother in law, and he ended up being traded to this person's brother and ended up in Baltimore, where the enslaved had a little bit different experience than those working on the rural plantations and the hard labor he was, Frederick was actually able to learn a task while he was in Baltimore. He was a ship caulker, and although he had to give most of his wages to his owner, he was able to keep some of that for himself. And it was also during this time in Baltimore when he took the first step towards what he would eventually be in his career, and he learned how to read. He was actually taught for a short period of time by his owner's wife, who taught her son and a young Frederick some of the rudimentary spelling and language. Once the husband found out, he ended that, because it was actually illegal in the south to teach an enslaved person how to read and write. So Frederick was kind of left on his own, and he kept learning, though, he took this rudimentary knowledge that he had, and really expanded on it on his own. He basically taught himself how to read and write, and this would be the again, the first step in his journey towards becoming the iconic orator and author that he became.

Lauren:

after experiencing a few years in the city of Baltimore, he is again sent back to rural plantation life in Maryland, and he talks about how the experiences he had in the city really made it unbearable to go back to the rural plantation life, where he was starving, where he witnessed brutality, beatings and whippings all the time. They weren't given any of the basic comforts they needed to really survive and thrive, and he just finds it really hard to deal with because he had experienced this other life in the city of Baltimore, and so he's eventually sent by his enslaver to someone known as a slave breaker, which is a horrible man who was known to try to break the spirits of enslaved people who were considered to have a strong, wild spirit, they needed to be tamed and basically beaten into submission. And he fights back. Douglas finds the courage to fight back against this slave breaker. Miraculously, he doesn't experience any major punishment for this, but he notes this as one of the ways that he really gains confidence in himself, that he has shown that a struggle, where he's in the underdog position, and he fights back, gives him the confidence to really have hope and believe that his life will get better, that he will get the opportunities to seek freedom, and it's really a pivotal moment in his life. After his time with this slave breaker, he eventually goes back to the city of Baltimore, and has another pivotal moment in his life when he meets his future wife, Anna Murray.

Devin:

Yeah, this is a vitally important in his story and their story as a family, obviously, but his wife, Anna Murray, was actually born free, although her parents were enslaved, her and some of her siblings were born free. She was a domestic servant when they met in Baltimore, and she really helped give Frederick the courage, I think, and also some financial backing for him to be able to flee, which he does in 1838 when he leaves Baltimore and ends up in New York City, where he waits for Anna to join him, and where the two are actually married, they then move to Massachusetts, and they end up settling in New Bedford, Massachusetts, where Frederick actually works for a while as a ship caulker and as a general laborer and tries to support his family. That's where his daughter, his first daughter, is born. And Anna also takes work as, again, as a domestic at this time. And they're kind of moving in the direction of a working class African American couple in New Bedford with a small family.

Lauren:

And the way that Douglas was able to take his own freedom was that he dressed as a sailor and he had papers semen papers from a friend of his and Anna Murray actually supported him by purchasing or helping him purchase the train ticket that would then bring him north.

Devin:

It was in New Bedford that Frederick Douglass actually became Frederick Douglass. He changed his name from Frederick Bailey to Frederick Douglass as a way to remain anonymous as a fugitive slave. This was a very difficult time for those who fled enslavement and remained in the United States, they could be hunted down, essentially, and brought back to slavery. So he changed his name. The family took the name Douglas, and it was in New Bedford that Frederick met the Reverend Thomas James from the AME Zion chapter in New Bedford, who was an African American Reverend and also an abolitionist, who happened to have spent several years in Rochester, New York. He was actually born enslaved in Canajoharie, New York, and then fled to Canada to achieve his freedom, but then settled in Rochester and spent some time there, where he became a reverend and also was self-educated. So it was really Thomas James and his experiences in Rochester that introduced the idea of moving to Rochester to Frederick Douglass. The second important person that Frederick Douglass met at this time was William Lloyd Garrison, who was one of the most prominent abolitionists in the North. He was the editor of The Liberator which at the time was essentially the most important abolitionist newspaper. He was also a prominent in abolitionist organizations that met around the north and brought in speakers to talk about the horrors of slavery and the moral degradation of slavery. And he meets Frederick Douglass and realizes that Frederick Douglass had been born enslaved, and asks him to tell his story about how he was enslaved and how he achieved his freedom. Douglas does so and blows people's minds, basically, with his ability to speak and to talk eloquently and passionately and in a moving way about his own experiences. And so William Lloyd Garrison asks Frederick Douglass if he would like to have a job going around and representing the abolitionist movement at different gatherings and essentially become a professional public speaker. Yeah, and I think it's really important that the focus is on his own story, right? It makes it so much more powerful that he lived this experience. And sometimes we think of the North being far removed from slavery. And of course, you know, at this time, there wasn't slavery in in New York, it was abolished in 1827, so northerners are somewhat removed from the actual day to day horrors of slavery, but when someone comes to them and is speaking about their personal experience, I think that that raw truth really makes more of an impact. And so Douglas was able to really influence people by his own experiences, that's absolutely true, and in reality, it's it's what makes him famous, you know, for the first time, not only as a speaker, but in publishing his first autobiography, The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, which becomes An instant bestseller, and really makes him famous and makes his name attached even more closely to the abolitionist movement. And it's really this fame from his speaking and from his own autobiography that leads to a speaking tour that takes him to Europe and the British Isles, specifically, for 18 months that he spends essentially on the road in Europe giving talks about the abolitionist movement, fundraising for the Abolitionist Movement, which was always part of what he was hoping to achieve, not only getting the word out and telling people about the horrors of slavery, but also fundraising. It was while he was in the British Isles for that 18 month period that his friends there raised money to send back to his former enslaver so that he would no longer have any claim upon Douglas as his property. And so once he does come back to America, he comes back as a free man after this long tour, and after fundraising around $4,000 for the cause that he decides he would like to open his own abolitionist newspaper and print his own abolitionist newspaper. Unfortunately, his colleagues and associates in the abolitionist movement in New Bedford think that would be a terrible idea. They can't envision an African American man having his own newspaper and printing and distributing that. They don't think it'll be successful. They think the resources could be spent better in other ways. So it's really that decision on their part, that makes Frederick Douglass think that perhaps New Bedford is not the best place for him and his family to be, and instead, he chooses to move to Rochester, which he had heard About through his association with the Reverend Thomas James.

Lauren:

And once he got to Rochester, he turned his attention to the press. What better way to get his message out to a larger audience than the newspaper? And so on December 3 of 1847 he published his first issue of the North Star, and he uses the name the North Star because that was known as a guide for freedom seekers. They used the north star as a direction for heading north towards Canada, towards freedom. The North Star really becomes probably the most influential venture that Douglas takes on in his time in Rochester.

Hon. Malik D. Evans:

Well, I just think that, you know, it's amazing to think that in the 1800s during slavery, you had a fruit, you had an African American publisher of a newspaper that was almost basically circulated worldwide. I mean, I think that that's important for people to remember. So I think it gives people help hope to know that during the some of the most turbulent times in our country, you had an anti slavery newspaper in the 19th century that was published and well received. And not only that, it was a weekly newspaper, which not monthly. I mean, that is, I mean, you know, Frederick Douglass was the editor. And for, you know, from 1847 I think, to about 1851 you had this newspaper that was being circulated around, around the country, you know, similar to the liberator, you know, it's, it's sold prescript subscriptions. I think they were $2 a year, which is amazing. This might have been a lot of money back then, but it had readers in Europe, in the Caribbean. So I just, I just think that it was, you know, it to me, it was brilliant and amazing to know that someone was able to publish such a newspaper during a time where publishing something like that could get you, could get you killed, and Frederick Douglass was able to do it.

Devin:

And Anna Douglas plays a massive role in all of this, because it's really her keeping of the home keeping of the five children that they end up having in Rochester and everything else kind of in operation while he Frederick is on the road. So Anna Douglas doesn't really get the amount of credit that she really deserves, and being able to enable Frederick Douglass to become this great orator, this great publisher and this great author, without her, probably none of that would have happened. And as we saw before, really, without her financial backing, he may not have ever even been able to leave Baltimore or enslavement.

Lauren:

yeah, and not only just keeping the home for her husband and her children, but we know that he was a conductor on the Underground Railroad, very active while he was in Rochester, and while he was absent on all of these speaking tours, the freedom seekers didn't stop coming. So she would have still been responsible and a large part of helping African Americans seeking freedom in arranging for them to stay either at their house or other houses that were part of the anti slavery movement, feeding them, finding them enough money so that they could get to Canada. She would have been very important in all of those details of the Underground Railroad, since he was gone for so long, he also traveled to Saratoga County. He actually came and spoke in June of 1849 and we know about his experiences here in Saratoga County because he wrote about it in one of the issues of the North Star. And this is, you know, a part of what he talks about. He actually speaks three times. The first time he speaks in Schuylerville, he gives a lecture at a schoolhouse near Dean's corners, which is a small hamlet within the town of Saratoga. And finally, on the third day, he speaks at the Friends Meeting House in Quaker springs, which is also in the town of Saratoga. He talks about how the crowd was largely made up of Quakers, the Quaker community in Saratoga County. We think that he came to Saratoga County because of some family connections through the Quaker community. That's how he knew that he could come here and be welcomed by the Quaker community and have an audience. Because he also, you know, in the same article where he's talking about some of the other places that he went, he says, you know, some of those meetings were not successful in Saratoga, he really felt like his influence could help the anti slavery cause. He actually says, quote, I had a quiet and undisturbed meeting and circulated a number of my narratives which may pave the way for anti slavery effort in that place, unquote so he, you know, he's making these tours and speaking so that he can further the cause of anti slavery.

Frederick Douglass spent 25 years of his life in the city of Rochester. He does eventually leave and he moves down to Washington, DC. Rochester was his home. It wasn't without tensions, and he did experience prejudice there as well. While he had moved down to DC, actually, his one of his homes in Rochester caught on fire and burned to the ground while his daughter and son in law were living inside. They did live through it, but he felt very bitter about that. But he always considered Rochester his home, so much so that even after dying in Washington, DC, his remains were brought back. His funeral held in Rochester, he was given a lot of honors, and he chose to be buried there. His influence over the city continues today in the ways that they choose to honor his memory and his activism, and even Currently, there are projects underway that make sure that Frederick Douglass is remembered in Rochester.

Devin:

One of those projects was the purchase of several Frederick Douglas statues by the city of Rochester that were erected originally in 2018.

Hon. Malik D. Evans:

So first off, let me tell you was, is this, this has been a very popular move that we did. So what happened was, these statues in 2018 were meant to be outside for, like, a year. Okay, they were so popular we kept them out there longer, but they were, they weren't designed to be out there that long, so they got very weathered, and they were going to be decommissioned and put into storage. And I said, Oh, no, we can't do that. So we found a way for the city to acquire those, get them all restored, and then, and then I made the mistake of saying, we'll talk to community organizations and see who wants them. Well, wow, overwhelmingly, everyone wants them. So we have to have we came up with a process to see where we could put these restored statues. And in fact, just a week ago, we unveiled one at the Hall of Justice in the atrium. So anybody going to the courthouse, they will see this statue and it will have some information on Frederick Douglass. So we thought that this was very important to have these statues live, live on, because they are an opportunity for it to be a teaching tool for future generations who may not be familiar with Frederick Douglass, to say who is this person and why is he important, not only just in Rochester history, but in American history.

Devin:

So just circling back to the statue that's in it's an aqueduct Park, the one by the Talman building. And the Talman building is still there, and it's still is there, like businesses in there, believe it or not, there is a printing business that's there.

Hon. Malik D. Evans:

Ah, there's, there's a printing business there and there, and a couple of other business that are rip businesses that are there. But that are there. But that building is extremely significant. We want to make sure that we preserve it, because it's been there. If you go in that building, there's a plat that talks about how it was Frederick Douglass, how he printed the newspaper there. So he printed there and there, and there's also an old church where he also printed some of some of the other things that were there. So I mean, I think it's so very, very important. I think one of the things that troubles me sometimes is that I think if you if you don't learn you know, sounds cliche, but if you don't know history, you're doomed to repeat it. And that's true. I mean, when you look through the when you want to know an answer to something, go back and look at the historical record. You know, I'm a preacher's kid, and you know, the book of Ecclesiastes says there's nothing new under the sun. And to make it even more non religious, Mark Twain said that history doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes, right? And so if, when we're wrestling or dealing with something, go back and look at how people dealt with it before. This isn't, you know, a lot of the stuff that we're seeing is not new. The year might be new, the conversations might be new. But there was some times over some historical period, either in American history or world history, which you know it was Ian. You can go back and look and see how people dealt with it. So that's why it's important for number one, to make sure that people work to learn history in an authentic way, but also that we don't minimize history, that it's not relegated to something that's not important. And that happens a lot. You know, you're often here. I always get upset when I hear people say, oh, you know, I'm minored in history in college. People say, Oh, what are you gonna do with that? It's like, well, there's a lot you can do with it. Of all of our greatest rewards, history is our greatest teacher. It's, it's, it's extremely important for that we that we make sure we honor, that we invest in our museums, that we visit, museums that we read, that we look to see what what history said. I mean, I'm always going back to look, to say, Okay, what happened here. So I think that that is very important for us to make sure that we are engaging in history in our everyday lives, is extremely important. I mean, could you imagine if we didn't know about Frederick Douglass? How many people has he inspired that we don't even know? You know, I learned the other day, for example, that that he used the shackles that used to hold him when he was in bondage, and he melted them down and made him into weights that he used to to exercise. I mean, I never knew that, but I heard that. I heard that the other day. So every day, there's something new that you learn about Frederick Douglass.

Devin:

Thanks for listening to A New York Minute in History. This podcast is a production of WAMC northeast Public Radio and the New York State Museum With support from the William G Pomeroy Foundation. Our producer is David Hopper.

Lauren:

A big thanks to city of Rochester Mayor Malik Evans for taking part. If you enjoyed this month's episode, make sure to subscribe on your favorite podcast platform and share on social media to learn more about our guests and the show. Check us out at W, A, M, C, podcast.org We're also on x and Instagram as @NYHistory Minute,

Devin & Lauren:

I'm Devin Lander and I'm Lauren Roberts, until next time, Excelsior.