Anna collaborated with Frederick and freedom reigned (revised June 24, 2023)

How the Douglass family worked together to keep their family whole while they fought against injustice

Juneteenth is a national holiday, now and I am reminded of Frederick Douglass' 4th of July speech, “What to the [en]slave[d] is fourth of July?” My niece pretty much asked that same question of her elders when her mom and I were talking about where we would celebrate the 4th this year. I can't quite let go of July 4th, because it belongs to me just as much as Juneteenth.  I strongly believe there are some promises the US government has yet to fulfill, so I be absent from 4th of July celebrations.  I need the powers that be to see my dark skin, full lips, my pride and they need to know their is still a promise to be kept. So while I wait for my 40 acres and a mule, or a check from the California reparations committee, I thought I'd revisit this essay I wrote in 2020 about Anna and Frederick Douglass who struggled to bring emancipation to fruition in the US. 

Frederick Douglass said in an 1876 letter about the Lincoln Park memorial that emancipation was a collaborative effort and that ‘no one monument could be made to tell the whole truth . . .’. He would know since he stood at the right hand of Lincoln and convinced the martyred president to do the right thing. He was also in and around the White House when Ulysses S. Grant signed into law the 15th amendment of 1869 granting the right to vote to Black men. Douglass spoke of emancipation as a collaboration between Lincoln and the enslaved who enlisted in the Civil War to fight for their own freedom.


Douglass’ life is a path paved with bread crumbs of alliances toward change. And the collaborator that allowed him to reach his greatness is rarely discussed. It was his wife of 44 years, Anna Murray. She was an amazing unsung heroine. Thanks to her teamwork, Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey realized his birthright of freedom and his new last name.


About 100 years before my own dad was born, Frederick and Anna met in 1838.  There are two ways they may have run into each other. One, supposedly while they were attending the same church or she ran into him at the docks when working as a laundress. Rosetta

Douglass Sprague, the daughter of Anna and Frederick wrote a comprehensive essay about her fearsome mother, "Anna Murray Douglass: My Mother as I Recall Her" (1900). 

Anna’s parents were enslaved and eventually manumitted, released from slavery. They had 12 children; five of them were born without the constraints of enslavement, unfortunately seven of them were not. Anna was the first of the five born into freedom. According to the Smithsonian Magazine (2018), Anna left home at 17 years old and found the only work she could, as a domestic. Because of that job, Rosetta wrote that her mom became a skilled housekeeper and modeled her own home after that of her employer’s.

Anna was born out of bondage, but slavery had not yet been abolished so learning to read was a distant fantasy. She could, however, count and was adept at creating a rainy-day fund.

Can you imagine sending your 17-year-old sister, daughter, niece into the streets today?  Look around in 2023 at the people living in tents and think of them as the newly released from bondage.  Where do they go when housing is too expensive and people take one look at them and decide they don’t want to rent to those people. I thought it would be difficult to imagine what it was like to be released from bondage and then be told to fend for yourself with no money and only the clothes on your back. Then I took a look at an underpass of the 405 freeway and sadly it’s not that big of a stretch to imagine what 1865 must have looked like. 

By the time Anna met the dashing Frederick, who had been vying for his own manumission, she had the finances and cunning to help. And, I’m sure she must have thought long and hard about parting with her nest egg.  She was a smart woman, so she obviously thought this love was a risk worth taking, and it was. According to their daughter Rosetta, Frederick gave his heart to Anna and she gave her "unswerving loyalty."

They conspired to get him to New York to meet up with another collaborator, he was of Caucasian persuasion.  There, Frederick paid for (with Anna’s finances from cleaning houses) documents which told anyone that needed know what Frederick already knew; he was restored back the freedom of his birthright. 

Check out the Universal Declaration of Human Rights introduced by Eleanor Roosevelt and adopted by the United Nations (UN) on December 10, 1948.  Can we get back to living up to that declaration?   Read it and you may better understand why number 45 no longer wanted the USA to be part of the UN. The document is all about worldwide peace and global inalienable human rights for everyone.

Anna worked as a housekeeper and Frederick with a saw and axe. When Frederick’s outspoken fame grew, his life was threatened and the white abolitionists of Boston pooled their money to send  Frederick to Europe for a year (1844 to 1845).  Anna was a single parent for a year with four children by then and the eldest was six years old. (I’m exhausted when my two toddler grandsons visit for the weekend.)  In addition to the money she received -- Frederick would send what he could when he could -- Anna took care of the family by binding shoes.  Remember she couldn’t read, but she kept the books like a banker and they did not go into debt.  

The Douglass family collaboration included Anna as a co-worker in the anti-slavery movement. As Frederick's fame grew, so did the family income. Rosetta writes that Anna didn't feel comfortable in the midst of so many people with formal education so she chose to stay home and collaborate a life with Frederick and the family. There were many nights of separation.

As he was the most photographed person of the time, even more than Abraham Lincoln, Anna made sure his wardrobe arrived cleaned, pressed, and photo-ready. At their home though, she hosted dignitaries, ordinaries and fugitives escaping to Canada.

Anna and Frederick worked together to keep their family whole. Theirs is a story of resilience, faith and focus at a time when most zeroed in on the despair of that time.  It was a rough period, an awful part of history that should never be forgotten lest it rears its ugly head again.  But this family made sacrifices in hope that today, in 2023, real change will happen. 

Here’s an interesting fact about how Frederick changed his name from Bailey to Douglass. According to the National Parks Conservation Association, “Frederick Douglass chose his name from a poem . . . After he successfully escaped slavery in 1838, he and his wife [Anna] adopted the name Douglass from a narrative poem by Sir Walter Scott, “The Lady of the Lake,” . . .

Anna helped Frederick gain his freedom, she assisted him in picking out a new name and because she was able to take care of the financials, raise the kids and run a depot of the Underground Railroad in their home, Frederick was able to tour the country and speak out against injustice on behalf of families he would never know. After 44 years of marriage she passed away due to a stroke. But what an amazing collaboration they created.

Yesterday and today, it takes collaboration and a host of like-minded humans who envision a brighter future for the US. It took 89 years after the Patriots kicked King George to the curb for black people to have their freedom reinstated and another 157 years for the US to acknowledge June 19, 1865 as freedom day for Black Americas. So yeah, I appreciate the day off, but there is restitution left to be paid and it will again take collaboration with allies for the US to make good on it's promise of freedom and justice for all.

To learn more about the Douglass family for yourself, click on the links in the references below  and read the full essay from Rosetta Douglass Sprague.

This essay was originally published on July 5, 2020 and was revised on June 24, 2023, following the second annual Juneteenth federal legal holiday.

References

Boissoneault, Lorraine. “The Hidden History of Anna Murray Douglass.” Smithsonian.com, Smithsonian Institution, 5 Mar. 2018, www.smithsonianmag.com/history/hidden-history-anna-murray-douglass-180968324/.

Douglass Sprague, Rosetta. “Anna Murray Douglass, My Mother As I Recall Her.” The Library of Congress, 10 May 1900, http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.mss/mfd.02007.

Errick, Jennifer. “10 Facts You Might Not Know About Frederick Douglass, in Honor of His 200th Birthday.” National Parks Conservation Association, National Parks Magazine, 1 Feb. 2018, www.npca.org/articles/1736-10-facts-you-might-not-know-about-frederick-douglass-in-honor-of-his-200th.

Jonathan W. White, Scott Sandage. “What Frederick Douglass Had to Say About Monuments.” Smithsonian.com, Smithsonian Institution, 30 June 2020, www.smithsonianmag.com/history/what-frederick-douglass-had-say-about-monuments-180975225/#:~:text=(Douglass'%20letter%20may%20be%20implying,it%20that%20way%20in%201876.)&text=%E2%80%9CWhat%20I%20want%20to%20see,his%20feet%20like%20a%20man.%E2%80%9D.

Owens, Donna. “Frederick Douglass' Descendants Want His Story to Inspire 200 Years after His Birth.” NBCNews.com, NBCUniversal News Group, 9 Mar. 2018, www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/frederick-douglass-descendants-want-his-story-inspire-200-years-after-n854826 .

“VIDEO: Frederick Douglass' Descendants Deliver His 'Fourth Of July' Speech.” NPR, NPR: America Reckons with Racial Injustice, 3 July 2020, www.npr.org/2020/07/03/884832594/video-frederick-douglass-descendants-read-his-fourth-of-july-speech. This video was inspired by Jennifer Crandall's documentary project "Whitman, Alabama." Visit whitmanalabama.com

Listen to the Douglass descendants as they read and comment on “What to the [en]slave[d] is the fourth of July?” https://youtu.be/NBe5qbnkqoM