American Experience; The Abolitionists; Interview with Erica Armstrong Dunbar, part 2 of 4

So, how did Douglas meet Anna or Frederick meet Anna? He meets Anna while he's back in Baltimore. He's returned to Baltimore and he's older, it's at a moment in his life where he's beginning to really sort of hire himself out a little more, although still own, still a slave. He begins to sort of encounter free black Baltimore in ways that he hadn't as a younger child. So, he meets Anna at sort of one of these mental improvement associations that were wildly popular for free blacks in the Annabelle, America. So, in just about any major city, Philadelphia, Boston, New York, there were lots of sort of improvement societies, places where free blacks could go to practice literacy, oration, to sort of spread general knowledge among each other.

And what's interesting is that while Anna is not literate, she's a free person. And Douglas sort of makes a way into this crowd of free people not by his status as a free person because he's enslaved, but in part because of his literacy. So, he meets her, and according to his narrative, they fall in love, they become joined fairly quickly, and she is instrumental in helping Douglas to escape. And, you know, it sort of makes sense that a free wife would be supportive and really sort of an agent of change for Douglas or free fiancee, rather, because the stakes were higher to have an enslaved man as a husband. Here is a free woman.

She was a domestic. She had been able to save some money on her own by working as a domestic. And to have a husband like Douglas, who was articulate and intelligent, and probably very appealing to her, there was still a very rate limiting step which surrounded the fact that he was a slave, and that in a place like Baltimore, he could never have a relationship with her that would not be in jeopardy. And as a fugitive, he's still, of course, risked being sent back to slavery in the south, but I think they both knew that to be a married couple, to live together with relative security that it couldn't happen in Baltimore, and that he would have to escape, and she supported

it. She gave him the funds to do so, helped him with his clothing to pass as a sailor. To eventually, through different ports, arrive in New York. Great. Thank you. We can hear that drop in there. We did? Yeah. Yeah. So let's just cover how did she help him to escape? Okay. Well, because when there's a tap dancing class right there, who cares how he heals anymore? This is some serious heal. It's just, yeah. That's impressive. Oh, yeah. Thank you. Yeah. So how did that assist specifically? So because she was a free woman, and because she was able to hold on to her earnings as a domestic, she really funded his passage north, and there would have been absolutely no

way, really, for Douglass to have done that, his earnings that he made as a ship cocker and sort of other trades always went back to his master. So with very small bits of it, given to him at a time, so there was no way that he could pay for passage out of the south, so that Anna's the one who made that happen, and addition to sort of helping him, there were reports that she helped make or at least find sailors outfit for him so that he could pass as a sailor, because he was literate, he was able to write his own paths, and to also sort of speak intelligently enough to pass as a free person of color, so that when he eventually arrives in New York, he sends for Anna, and so he's made it quite clear that he's not running to New York and leaving her behind,

but that he wants her to join him, and they're married very quickly in New York, and they stay married until her death in the 1880s. He remains loyal to Anna, because he understands that once again, this is where sort of kinship networks help assist slaves, and that that relationship between a husband and wife, something that was forbidden in the institution of slavery, is what actually gave him his freedom. So he brings her, he bakes it a sort of legitimate union, and although he's still a fugitive, there together, there are family, they move to Massachusetts, and they are a sort of united front in a way, and he always respects her and appreciates her for what she did. Very nice, thank you. So as soon as he gets to New York, he has to be a fugitive.

Why does he have to change his name and how does he come up with Douglass? Right. Those slaves like Douglass, who were lucky enough to make it beyond Maryland, up to Philadelphia, New York, and then or and or Boston, they understood that they were free, but that it was a very precarious freedom, that they were fugitives, and that according to the law they could and would be returned to Baltimore, and then perhaps sold further south. For Douglass, he's keenly aware that there was but so much space and distance between New York and Baltimore, and that it was his intent to sort of blend into the masses of free blacks in New York by the 1830s. Slavery is gone, it's defunct in places like

Philadelphia and New York, Massachusetts, Boston, places that had ended the slave trade decades before, so that there was sort of hiding in plain sight, right? The masses of free blacks, yet you're still very cautious. You know that you could be captured and returned, so a name change is necessary for protection in order to protect yourself from slave catchers and kidnappers, but it's also, once again, this sort of symbol of freedom, that one of the first things that almost all fugitive slaves do is they change their name. They name themselves, and act a sort of form of agency that shows control over them as human beings, and he turns to friends who help in New York free blacks who help him with his escape, and originally he chooses

the name Johnson to, as his surname, but he quickly realizes that everybody and their brother was named Johnson, and that that would not work for him, so he really sort of allows his friend to come up with Douglass. He refused to change his first name, that was something that he clung to, but this act of naming, this act of reclaiming, in particular, a surname, was really one of the beginning steps of asserting one's freedom, and to sort of integrating into a world that would hopefully no longer see or treat you as a slave. Great, thank you very much. Now how did how did Garrison come to know about how Douglass comes to know about Garrison? Okay, so Douglass moves up to Massachusetts, and he encounters what

many fugitives, and free people of color, those who had never been enslaved at any point in their lives, he really sort of encounters the difficulties of life as a skilled person, but someone who was unable to get cocking jobs in the seaports, sort of forced to participate in whatever kind of work, he could get his hands on to take care of him and his wife, and then eventually a family, and while he was sort of busy taking care of himself and his wife, he quickly sort of becomes engaged through churches, and of course by this time the Massachusetts Annie Slavery Society had been around for some time, for close to a decade by the time that Douglass appears, and as abolition,

this sort of Annie Slavery movement gains steam in the north, many Annie Slavery societies look to fugitive slaves, in a way to sort of authenticate the slave experience, to lend a sort of personal lens to this story of Annie Slavery to this crusade. So Douglass begins, he's literate, he's a great order, begins talking and sharing his experiences, his life, and I think when we all know that we probably speak the best in public when we're talking about ourselves, so for Douglass it doesn't appear to be that difficult for him to share his story, he's nervous, he's at some level intimidating standing in front of a room of educated white

abolitionists, but he stands as ground at his first speech. Garrison is so moved at Douglass's story, he's so moved with the way that Douglass is able to tell his story that he's almost sort of enraptured by Douglass almost immediately. He sees Douglass as part of this Annie Slavery struggle, that it's clearly not, and this is what makes Garrison so unique, right? He's radical, he's radical in his beliefs about Annie Slavery, but the fact that he wanted to see Annie Slavery through the eyes of black people made him fairly radical for the 1840s, early 1840s. So Douglass gives him this window into the world of a slave, in places like Massachusetts throughout New England where many

of the audience members had never ever seen a slave, let alone been to the slave's south, so to have a person like Douglass stand there and explain the kind of daily degradation that he was forced to tolerate, the savage beatings, the mistreatment of children and women, this gave the Annie Slavery cause teeth, it gave it authenticity, it gave it a new voice. So we're going to jump ahead to 45 and Douglass is narrative. Why did Douglass decide to publish his art path? In many ways, Douglass, his literacy, his great oratory skills, his reputation that he was starting to build for himself in the 1840s was sort of a double edged sword. It brought people to

Annie Slavery meetings that many were interested in hearing this fugitive slave talk, but it also started to create some doubt in the minds of many who heard Douglass speak, that could this man who was such a gifted speaker, this person who was so articulate, so intelligent, and really be a fugitive slave, could he really have come from the kind of background that he suggests that he comes from. So many ways, Douglass does this, writes this autobiography, not to, he say he wants to tell his story, to sort of demonstrate the evils of slavery to expose it, but also he sort of needs to do this for his own validation, his own authenticity, to sort of prove

to name names, to name places, to give very sort of specific, detailed as much as possible evidence about his experience as an enslaved person. So it's this sort of interesting thing that happens that once he's a fugitive, he's no longer trying to prove that he's a man, and sort of a man who's in control of his own decisions, but he actually has to prove the opposite now that he was indeed a slave, that he did endure the trials and tribulations that he describes. You know, it's not sort of a rare thing when he writes his autobiography, to sort of prove where he's from. He of course is sort of beginning this move by many critics who begin to challenge slave narratives, and challenge the authenticity, challenge whether or not it was

actually the slave him or herself who wrote their narrative. And for Douglas, it's very clear that he's the one who did it. He's a sort of public speaker, quite intelligent, but he actually has to prove a point with this narrative that this is my story and look where I've come from, but I am an authentic fugitive slave. So it's this sort of interesting play that when he goes in Earth and gains a reputation of sorts that he has to prove where he comes from. And what is his other than authenticating himself, which he needs to do, what is the message, in his choice of incidents, and what message is he sending to what portrait of slavery, is he painting for his white audience? He's painting a couple of very important points through his experience about the institution of slavery. It's an expose. It's an expose about,

of course, the horrible treatment of slaves, men and women, children. It is once again that example to northerners who are unfamiliar with on a personal level, what slavery is on the everyday level. It's also an indictment to some in some respect about Southern Christians, that those southerners who proclaimed to be Christians and were talking about a sort of moment in time where religious revivalism was quite strident throughout the country. He says, look at this religion, your practice. And he shows the hypocrisy of their beliefs and of their actions. So in many ways, it's an indictment against Southern Christianity.

It's also, in many ways, an example of how the institution of slavery not only degrades slaves, but it degrades the master, that this institution over time, and we see this with Sophia Alt, she's a perfect example of a woman who was supposedly warm, caring when she first meets Douglas, becomes a sort of angry, little sullen woman who has been jaded, tainted, corrupted by the institution of slavery as does her husband who becomes an alcoholic, that they are examples. She's an example of someone who was untouched by slavery, somewhat virtuous, somewhat pure, but by the end of her life as she is really sort of entrenched in slavery,

her life changes, she becomes bitter, she becomes evil. So in many ways, Douglas's story represents the transition or the effects rather that slavery has on white people, on slave owners, not just slaves. And this was part of Garrison's call as well, right? That we have to look at not only how slavery degrades people, and by the eve of the Civil War, we're talking about 4 million enslaved people throughout the country, but all of their slave holders, all of the overseers, people who are in some way connected to this institution. Has slavery, how has Southern society changed by the eve of the war, and with respect to slavery? Has it been corrupted in that sense? Corrupted in the sense that Douglas's

and Garrison are suggesting? It's quite clear by the eve of the Civil War that southerners had a new kind of priority regarding slavery, that it was something that developed over time that, with westward expansion, with the expansion of cotton, with the opening of new territories that could provide, I'm sorry, I'm totally distracted by the voice in the back. I lost my train. I don't remember what I was saying. You know, I'm going to come back to our story actually, but I was taking you off on a tangent. So Douglas goes away after the narrative, goes to Britain, and we pick up his story when he comes back and joins Garrison in the Western tour. How was Douglas changed by time in Britain? In many ways, Douglas's experience abroad connects to the

larger trajectory of African-American experience and engagement in Europe or abroad. We see a man who goes to Europe and experiences a sort of, once again, a very different life, a different level of respect. He does encounter racism at certain points, but he writes that he experiences a greater freedom in Europe. A place, of course, England had done away with slavery by the Lady Tint 30, so his experience abroad, once again, makes him question the nature of slavery, but the nature of freedom and the possibilities of freedom. It's a while in Europe, we see, once again,

a maturation process through which Douglas travels his engagement with new friends, with different kinds of anti-slavery circles, really pushes him to begin to question, fairly standard by this time Garrisonian tactics about the ways to end slavery, what was appropriate, what was not. It gave Douglas a worldview that he really hadn't had prior to leaving the United States, and we see this in other forms of sort of famous African-Americans who go off to Europe and return home, I'm thinking more specifically about World War II and soldiers who serve as officers in World War II in Europe and they're treated better, although they're fighting in a segregated army,

then they've ever been treated at home, and that when they return that we see the beginnings of a civil rights movement sort of develop and come out of this experience abroad, and so looking back at Douglas, we see the same kinds of threads that he's pushed intellectually to think about slavery in new ways, but also to think about the way of ending slavery in new ways. So he's sort of maturing with more of a world lay, more of a global understanding of slavery, which is wonderful for him as a man, as an activist, as a writer, but does create a problem for him and his friend slash mentor William Wood Garrison, it really is the beginning of a serious set of problems that exist with their relationship that eventually cause them to sever ties.

Now do you think that Garrison understands the change that's come over Douglas in his time away? I think he does, he knows that Douglas is changing, whether... I'm sorry I'll get you started again to say Garrison rather than using the pronouns. Okay. I think that Garrison sees his mentee maturing. He sees his mentee becoming somewhat famous. He sees that his mentee is developing new relationships with other anti-slavery folks. He, while in England, Douglas makes the decision to allow his British friends to pay for his freedom. And Garrison was really pretty uncomfortable with this that to support the slave cause to pay

for Douglas's freedom, because Douglas is still a fugitive, that to do that in some ways was acknowledging that the institution was legitimate. It was not part of Garrison's preferred tactics in dealing with slavery, but this should have shows the difference between an anti-slavery activist who's white and who's never been enslaved and Douglas who is a fugitive and is still never going to be safe nor is family safe until he is a free man on paper. So Douglas explains this and he says, well, I'm accepting the generosity of my friends, right? So this is Douglas making a very sort of clear decision about his own life, about the possibilities and the security that came with purchasing his freedom for some 700 or so dollars from his owners in

Maryland. And he goes on to state that I'm merely merely paying the ransom because I was kidnapped. He refrains from saying that he's purchasing himself, but that really this was an illegal transaction to begin with and that this is ransom money. But it shows Garrison that Douglas won't be led by all of his tactics, his beliefs, especially when it has to do with him. Well, this brings us to the newspaper.