Becoming Frederick Douglass

KEN MORRIS

Frederick Douglass was chosen from among all of the children on the plantation on the Eastern shore of Maryland, to go to Baltimore to be the house servant for his master's family. And he described this event as divine providence in his favor. (bleak music)

FREDERICK DOUGLASS

"There were a number of slave children that might have been sent from the plantation to Baltimore. I was chosen from among them all. (sounds of sea gulls) We arrived at Baltimore early on Sunday morning. Mr. and Mrs. Auld were both at home, and met me at the door with their little son, Thomas, to take care of whom I had been given."

MARCIA CHATELAIN

Enslaved children in many ways mirrored the activities of the adults around them. Children were responsible for caring for children not much older, or even a few years younger than them. And so, in this process, they were being groomed for that position in society. And Frederick Douglass experienced that throughout his childhood. (melancholy music)

NICK BROMELL

Mrs. Hugh Auld doesn't really understand that to keep someone enslaved, you have to treat them as a non-human being. Because they've never had a slave before. They're new to slavery. So, she starts teaching Douglass how to read.

DERRICK SPIRES

And Hugh Auld catches him, and is incensed. And he says, "If you teach him how to read, he will no longer be fit for enslavement."

KEN

And Frederick heard that message loud and clear. (laughs) And he looked at his enslaver and thought, "Hmm, if you don't want me to have this, I'm going to do everything in my power to gain it."

FREDERICK DOUGLASS

"Wise as Mr. Auld was, he evidently underrated my comprehension. And the very determination which he expressed to keep me in ignorance only rendered me the more resolute in seeking intelligence."

JOHN STAUFFER

He lived in a neighborhood in Baltimore with a number of comparatively poor immigrant boys. And Sophia Auld would make biscuits, and he would fill his pockets with biscuits and trade biscuits for words. Asking the boys who were learning how to read what they meant. And from them, he learned how to read. He learned how to write. He took some chalk and would practice his handwriting on the streets of Baltimore. And that's how he learned how to read and write.

DERRICK

Literacy became a kind of gateway, an inflection point for him. Learning to read was about access to literally reading words on the page. But it was also access to knowledge. So one of the books he mentions, again and again, is the "Columbian Orator." (somber music)

JOHN

The two main books that Douglass read were...one, the "Bible." The other book that he read, was the "Columbian Orator." Which is a collection of speeches designed for young boys who didn't have the privilege of formal education to help them become effective speakers and writers. (somber music)

DERRICK

And in that text, he encounters a dialogue between an enslaved person and his enslaver. Where he sees this enslaved person reason with the enslaver, and point by point, dismantle all the justifications for enslavement.

FREDERICK DOUGLASS

The master was vanquished at every turn in the argument; and he generously, and meekly emancipates the slave with his best wishes for his prosperity. And I could not help feeling that the day might come, when the well-directed answers made by the slave to the master would find their counterpart in myself.