Becoming Frederick Douglass

SONG I'm gonna sail like a ship on the ocean, I'm gonna sail like a ship on the ocean I'm gonna sail like a ship on the ocean...

VINCENT LEGGETT

Once he got to Baltimore, which was a thriving shipbuilding point, Fells Point in Baltimore, he would see people of color from all around coming into Fells Point not only to get their boats repaired but bringing in cargo. Well, I'm gonna sail till I see my dear old mother,

FREDERICK DOUGLASS

In a few weeks after I went to Baltimore, Master Hugh hired me to Mr. William Gardner, and extensive ship builder on Fells Point. I was put there to learn how to caulk. (gentle music)

VINCENT LEGGETT

The Caulkers are a high-skilled position to help repair wooden vessels. And Frederick Douglass became very skilled in that craft as well as many other African Americans in Baltimore's Fells Point.

DERRICK SPIRES

In Baltimore, you have a really robust free Black population with AME Church.

MARCIA CHATELAIN

The AME Church was central in not only creating a space for African Americans to worship, but creating a network of support for African Americans who were committed to anti-slavery.

CHRIS BONNER

The church made possible a lot of Frederick Douglass's life, it made it possible for him to meet Anna Murray and meeting Anna Murray was really what made it possible for Douglass to get free.

KEN MORRIS

There would be no Frederick Douglass without Anna. They met in Baltimore when Frederick was a teenager, enslaved. As they started thinking about a life together, Anna was one of the first people to plant the seed of thought in his mind that, "Frederick, you're not meant to be a slave for life. It doesn't matter what your enslaver says to you." And as they're starting to think about a life together, she said, "Frederick, I don't want our children's father to be a slave."

EDWARD BAPTIST

The only way that they can get married, and have a family and live the way that they wanna live is for him to escape and, and her to meet him in the north. The problem is, the steamboats, the railroads, the road crossings into Pennsylvania, all of these are guarded. African American individuals had to carry their free papers in order to get through those different checkpoints. So, it's quite a quandary, but they come up with a plan to pass him off as a free Black sailor.

VINCENT

The U.S. Navy had more people of color in their ranks than any other branch of service. There was a brotherhood of people of the sea. It didn't matter whether you were Black or White, if you had your seamen's papers. (somber music)

EDWARD

What Anna does is get him, a suit of sailor's clothes. They borrow a set of, of papers that sailors carried when they travel to different ports so they wouldn't be, arrested. And so, this is his disguise.

VINCENT

So, Frederick Douglass took the train up to the Susquehanna River. They were so used to seeing the blue jackets and the gold buttons with the eagles on it. That wasn't news. (somber music)

EDWARD

This is how he is able to board a train, board a steamer, and ultimately, make it across the Mason Dixon line, first to Philadelphia, and Delaware, and then on to New York, where he meets up with Anna again, he gets married to her. (background sounds of city) (somber music)

KEN

Had she not sold her personal belongings to help finance his escape, who knows if he would've had the courage or the wherewithal to escape. And had that not happened, we would be a very different country sitting here today.