Anna Murray & Frederick Douglass

for that. Don't worry this one. Um no, but it's so excited to have you back. Everybody had a great weekend. We had a nice time. You know, our friends Cherry and Jason of course recently on the show. We got to hang out with them. Really nice time. We get to go see some my old friends from like high school days and onwards and uh, and then we got to see The Batman, which is so good, guys, it's so good, really so good. I was expecting to I

don't know, I don't know what I was expecting. I think I was really like, don't get excited, don't get scared, just go to the Batman, like it's our six Batman. This year and uh, but I don't know. I liked it, but then we saw The Lost City was so fun. Look, they just don't make movies like that anymore, and they need to. It was so much fun. It was just a good time. It's like, yeah, a good time. I'm just having fun watching this for real. Daniel Radcliffe was

having a bell last making it so much fun. Channing Tatums hilarious. Sandy b is phenomenal as always as she has been from day one. Sandy Be just on the ridiculous romance front. I did love that STI what was it? A couple of different talk shows where Keanu Reeves confessed that he had a big crush on her when they're making speed, and she confessed that she had a big crush on him and they were making speed and they never said anything. Kind a Sandy Be Keanu Reeves thing.

Instead of whoever she ended up marrying. She well, actually, we probably should do Sandy Be on this show because she married that former white supremacist or whatever and she never knew about it. Something like that. You know what, there should be a podcast about it somewhere. Someone should really dig into that story. It's like this kind of like relationship. That's just um, it's just ridiculous, and somebody

ought to do a podcast about it. If y'all think of anyone who should do that show, let us know, maybe tell them. But you're not here for celebs. You're not here for movie reviews. Much as we could go into it, but no, today we are not talking about Sandy b. We're not talking about any one of them. We're talking about Frederick Douglas. Baby, one and only. You might know Frederick Douglas as a famous escaped slave and an abolitionist and an amazing orator and a statesman and

an author and all these amazing achievements. But did you know that ladies loved him? Oh, Freddie friends, he was the LLL cool J of his time. L L Freddie D. Ladies love the D D love Freddy D. But seriously, this is so interesting to read more about him and and and look into his relationships, because a lot more of his legacy should be credited to the women around him, more than I ever knew, and I think more than many people ever knew. So I'm very excited to share

this story with all of you. And let's hear more about his wife, Anna Murray and all the other women who helped Frederick Douglas become the man that he was and preserve his legacy for future generation. Let's go pay their friends come listen well, Eli and Diana got some stories to tell. No matchmaking, a romantic tips, It's just about pridiculous relation, shift a lover. It might be any type of person at all, and abstract cons an't a concrete wall. But if there's a story with the second glance,

ridiculous roles. A production of I Heart Radio. Frederick Douglas was born Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey in Maryland in February eighteen seventeen or eighteen eighteen. The records are not great. Yeah, they were great at records back then. Well, not of especially of enslaved people. Of enslaved people. They're like, who needs to write this down? And yes, he was enslaved. His mother was enslaved, so he was as well. And

it's widely accepted that his father was white. He wrote himself that it was whispered around that his master was his father, but he never got confirmation of that, so it's not known but an all too common story. His exact birthdate is unknown, but Frederick chose to celebrate his birthday on February fourte because his mother would call him

her little Vali time cute is very cute. And even though he was separated from his mother during infancy what Frederick called quote a common custom in Maryland, she lived twelve miles away, so she was able to visit him a few times before her death when Frederick was only seven. So in his childhood, Frederick was sent to serve Hugh Auld and his wife Sophia in Baltimore, Maryland. When he was about twelve, Sophia all started to teach him the alphabet.

Sophia had always been kind to Frederick. I mean, you know, as kind as you know an enslaver can be to their enslaved person. I suppose, um, but you know, on that relative scale, she was relatively kind. She made sure that he got enough food and warm, clean clothes, and Frederick wrote about her that she treated him quote as she supposed one human being ought to treat another, just a little backhanded way to be like idea, well what a concept? What have we treated people as if we

felt like we're supposed to treat them? But Sophia's husband Hugh told her stop teaching Frederick how to read and write. He thought literacy was going to encourage enslave people to desire freedom, which what a concept. Teaching him his letters any day now he'll decide he's worth something. Right. So, after Hugh said, you know, if enslave people learned to read and write, then they'll want their freedom, Frederick wrote, quote very well, thought I knowledge unfits a child to

be a slave. I instinctively assented to the proposition, and from that moment I understood the direct pathway from slavery to freedom. So he's like, thanks for the idea, boss, You're right. If I learn more, I can get the hell out of this hell hole. Is that what it takes? Well, let me do that, so I will well. Unfortunately, Sophia also assented to this proposition. Under her husband's influence, she came to agree that slaves should not know how to

read and write. So she decided to stop teaching Frederick to read, and she would like snatch newspapers out of his hands. She even hid her Bible from him so he couldn't read it, which is just so funny. Again, just hiding the knowledge of the Lord seems like, kind of runner intuitive what you're trying to do, but whatever,

that's right. I also want to jump in and say one thing that I do kind of love about this is that this man who was an enslaver is the very guy who gave Frederick Douglas the impulse to go out and make something of himself. So congratulations, he played yourself, I know, right. And he was like, oh, if you learned how to read, you won't be a slave anymore. He's like, bet, I will learn how to read. I would love to go back and in a time machine and find that guy and be like, hey, guess what

you did. You contributed to one of the prominent figures who ended slavery. Asshole, Well, isn't that the main thing? Like, isn't that the thing you create? You when you oppressed people, you always create your own destruction destructors or whatever. That there's a whole phrase for saying it wrong, but anyway, exactly that's what he did. So yeah, she was like, oh my bad, let me stop teaching this guy how

to read. But it was too late. Frederick had learned enough from Sophia that he was able to continue in secret and teach himself and he observed like white shoulder and he kind of like watched what they read, or he would look over their shoulder and listen to them, like sounding things out and stuff, and just continue to teach himself in secret how to read and write, and at some point learned that his mother had also been literate and had taught herself how to read and write,

and he was like, he would point to that fact a lot with a lot of pride because he was just like, she snatched that knowledge and away from them basically because they didn't want to give it to her, and made, you know, she made that happen for herself. And he was really proud of that. This is incredible

to me. And the idea of just like staring at words until you learn how to be like that takes a real level of intelligence and dedication to teach yourself something without someone coming in and telling you, you know, well, let's start here, this is how it is totally well and then I mean, when I was in China, one of our tour guides talked about learning English by listening to the radio in English and just listened until she could understand what they was saying. And I was just

like insane, just especially, I mean, at least written. You've got the same thing over and over again. Radio you just listen to people talk and you have to make sense of so much and without someone saying, okay, well, let me give you a five code words, like I'll translate these five words into your native language and you can at least use that as context to figure out the rest. But to go from nothing. But the Batman himself could not decipher English from the radio, and him

he didn't know it. Frederick Douglas, you heard it here first. Frederick Douglas better than the Batman. So yeah, Frederick Douglas learned how to read, learned how to write. He was hired out to the Freeland family and he started whole holding Sunday school sessions there and he would teach other slaves how to read and write as well, and something like forty people would come to this Sunday school. And I guess the Freeland family was sort of like cool

with us. They're pretty complacent. They sound kind of like the Benedict Cumberbatch character from Slaver was sort of like, quote unquote one of the good ones. Yeah, I mean, I'll still buy you and consider your property, but I won't treat you like ship while I do it um So anyway, I think it was kind of their vibe.

But because slaves from other plantations were coming to this Sunday school to learn how to read and write, those owners, those masters and enslavers were very angry about this whole scenario, and at one point they busted into the Bible study with clubs and stones to break it up permanently, and that was the end of that. So, as a result of all this, Frederick's own enslaver, Thomas Auld, sent him to work for ed Word Covey, who was this poor

farmer who was known as a slave breaker. Now Frederick is only sixteen at this point, and he was whipped and beaten so frequently that his wounds didn't even have time to heal. He wrote that the beatings broke his mind, body, and spirit. But one day he turned on Edward and fought back, and after that he was never beaten again. So, when he was around twenty years old, Frederick was working as a caulker down at the docks in Baltimore, and one day he met a woman there named Anna Murray.

Anna had seven older brothers and sisters who had been born into slavery, But only a month before Anna was born, her mother and father were manumitted, and manumission is when a slave owner voluntarily freeze their slaves, whereas emancipation is when the government makes you do it. So Anna and her four younger siblings were born free man a month. You know. Was that some luck right there? And it doesn't say if her older siblings had been manumented as well.

We just kind of hope. So do you think these these manumission slaveholders just like woke up and looked in the mirror one day and we're like, what the fuck

am I doing? Yeah? I kind of. I mean, well, that's the thing is that it's so interesting to read more about um the lead up to the Civil War, and that's part of this story because it just kind of proves how like slavery was not super popular it after we declared our independence and said there should be equality, A lot of people read that and we're like, I take that for real seriously, and this does not it

doesn't make sense together. I can't look at this slavery institution and also feel proud of my freaking free country that everybody's free in because everybody in late seventeen hundred stood up and said, that's right, we will no longer be slaves to King Joe. Oh wait a second, what did I say? Did you say slave? Yeah, that's not so good. Are we doing that? Wait a minute. But they all, you know a lot of them to Like,

I mean, Thomas Jefferson manumated some of his slaves. George Washington manumated all of his but in his will after he was dead, you know what I mean. So they're all like just later, like I don't want to do it, but like y'all should do it. I think we talked about a little in governor more just taking the can down the road a little bit. I also just want to just want to throw a shout out to Anna's mom, who popped out twelve babies, oh my god, most of

them while she was enslaved herself. Right, good for you. I'm just saying, well, yeah, we're over here, like a baby. That would really cramp my style. She's rocking twelve in and out of enslavement, my god. Um anyway, so Anna was born free and she was a very resourceful woman, obviously with a big emily um so by the time she was seventeen, She's taken in laundry. She's working as

a housekeeper, paying bills, you know, getting shipped done. And some sources say that this work took her to the docks and that's how she met Frederick, who was you know, culking culking something, I guess. But another source South Coast Today says that they met in a group called East Baltimore Mental Improvement Society, and that was a group that was,

you know, formed for free black men and women. But Frederick Douglas, who was still enslaved at this time, was allowed in because he knew how to read and write, and he was also just a very eloquent speaker, and that was a plus because one of the main activities of the group was giving lectures and you know, speeches about I guess mental improvement. But I think that we

should just because no one really knows. It's not recorded anywhere, but I thought we could maybe pull into Speculation Station and tell people how they met, how Frederick and Anna met. I just picture like a real smooth talking Frederick Douglas. I don't feel like he had a line. He had had He was pretty handsome, so I feel like he know, he was probably a hey, girl, what's in that basket? I don't I don't have any game? Well, no, yeah, she she walks up and she's he's you know, he's

working on a ship or something. She's like impressive cock, and he's like, excuse me, thank you? So Anna had games? Yeah, it was an Anna came at like that. I mean he left the door wide open working as a cocker. I think he would have. What would you say, though, if you saw a pretty laundress walking down the street with her laundry basket and you were like, I got to talk to her, what would I say? I don't know. Yeah,

first of all, I'm gonna have game either. I've never the only way I've ever dated women is by already being friends with them for many years. Okay, that's true. So that's what I would do. I would invite her to join my theater company, and in a few years down the line, I'd wait for her to make a move on me. That's hey, It's worked every time. I think. Ultimately, the real challenge here is me trying to imagine anything

about what Frederick Douglas would feel like in any given situation. Yeah, so I think I'm just gonna leave that one in speculation station. All right, Well, I liked the cult jokes we came up with anyway, Yeah, exactly so. Anna herself was about five years older than Frederick, and her freedom made Frederick believe that he could be free too. He had tried once before to escape slavery about four or five years earlier when he was working for the freelance

but that had been unsuccessful. But after meeting Anna for the first time since then, he started plotting his escape. But this time he had an ace up his sleeve. Anna herself. She sold one of her feather beds and gave him part of her life savings to fund his escape out of Maryland. When she took in laundry, she would set aside pieces of sailor's clothing to give him to wear as disguise. Frederick got his identification papers from a free black sailor that he could travel under, and

then finally, in eighteen thirty eight, everything was ready. Frederick escaped and made his way to the home of abolitionist David Ruggles in New York City, and for this short journey he was enjoying his freedom. Only twenty four hours after leaving Maryland. He wrote of his first free day quote, a new world had opened upon me. I lived more in one day than in a year of my slave life. Thinking about Ellen and William Kraft, of course, oh yes,

that is such a good episode. I must say, if you haven't heard that one, go back and listen to it because their escape is incredible. Just edgier seat ship the whole time. But they had to go a thousand miles freedom that was the name of their book. So this was just blowing my mind that, like they had to go a thousand miles and once they got there, it must have felt like, well, I freaking really escaped from something. I had to really go far away to

get away from that. Whereas he almost was like next door, you know, and he's like looking at a free place, and it's like I just can't get there, and I need to get there, and I don't get money. That's sort of my whole problem to get money for my labor, so I have no freedom to move about. I just think it must be so weird to just be like, man, yesterday I was not safe and now I am absolutely Yeah, just a totally different mindset. Just showing two different versions

of this is just yeah, and then just again. Just to be so close and not be free yourself must be so maddening. So yeah, he's in New York, He's breathing free air. He feels great, and he sends for Anna to join him. And they were married eleven days after he escaped slavery on September thirty eight, and they took the name Johnson, and then they moved to New Bedford,

Massachusetts to start their married life together. So their daughter, Rosetta Douglas Sprague wrote a paper called Anna Murray Douglas, my mother, as I recall her, and it's basically one of the only pieces of writing that tells us anything about Anna and her contributions to Frederick's life. And Rosetta wrote of their duly wed life together, quote, the little that they possessed was the outcome of the industrial and

economic habits that were characteristic of my mother. She had brought with her sufficient goods and chattel to fit up comfortably two rooms in her new Bedford home, a feather bed with pillows, bed linen, dishes, knives, forks, and spoons, besides a well filled trunk of wearing apparel, for herself. The early days in New Bedford were spent in daily toil, the wife at the washboard, the husband with saw buck

and ax. So you see your there's a really close team. Um. She thought of everything, and she was just very good at making a home out of wherever she is. It seems like um and they both had to work incredibly hard to keep it together those early days, and only a couple of years later they moved to Lynn, Massachusetts, and they stayed with a couple named Nathan and Mary Johnson. So they get in there like George Johnson, we are Johnson. I thought we were the Johnson's Excuse me, Mr Johnson? Yes, yes,

fifty guys. So they decided that Johnson was just too common of a name, so Frederick asked Nathan what they should change theirs too, and Nathan had recently read the poem Lady of the Lake and he suggested Douglas, after one of the main characters, so they took the name Frederick and Anna Douglas. Frederick wanted to join a white Methodist church, but this church was segregated, so he instead joined a black congregation that included sojourn or Truth and

Harriet Tubman as members. I feel like if I was in that white Methodist church, I'd be like, let me um can I also so Frederick became a preacher the next year, which helped him hone his public speaking skills, and he continued to join and organize with abolitionist groups. That is when he met the famous abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison, who ran the most radical, prominent anti slavery newspaper, The Liberator.

Each man was totally impressed with the other. Frederick said Garrison's paper was second only to the Bible in his heart, and they soon became close collaborators in the fight to end slavery. And as some of the meetings that Frederick attended, he would be invited to speak, and like every time he talked, people were like, holy shit, this guy's amazing. Um, he really impressed the crowd. He had so eloquent, his delivery was amazing. He had great presence, but also his

personal story was just incredibly stirring. He could talk about life in slavery, life escaping slavery, living basically illegally as a freeman. And they also thought that his eloquence and education made him kind of a great living example of how dumb it was to think that black people are inherently inferior to white people. You know. They were just like, if you withhold education, obviously people are going to be uneducated,

but not because they're just unable to learn. At this guy he taught himself what you teach yourself, William Lloyd Garrison. But yeah, so they were basically like, oh, this is a really good you know again example capital e of a good black man. I guess that we can use as a good mascot people. They always need to hear that ship right, and we you know, respectability politics aside.

That was really important at the time. So Frederick was encouraged to become an anti slavery lecturer, and so he took his first six month lecture tour in eighteen forty three throughout the Eastern and Midwestern states, talking about slavery. In Indiana, he was badly beaten by slavery supporters after one of his speeches, and his hand was broken in the attack. He actually had to be rescued by a Quaker couple and it healed improperly and bothered him for

the rest of his life. And in five he published the first edition of his autobiography. Now, Anna was part of abolition organization efforts too. She was active in a group called the Boston Female Anti Slavery Society or be Fast acronym myself Shake the Fast, Watch Yourself bf S the Boston Female as no sending that by the time Frederick was publishing his autobiography, they already had four children

to get there. There was Rosetta who was born in eighteen thirty nine, Lewis Henry in eighteen forty, Frederick Jr. In eighteen forty two, and Charles Rimond into But Anna did even more than that. Frederick's work lecturing and writing about slavery didn't pay that well, so Anna supported the family financially. She took in laundry, she learned how to

make shoes. The family leaned on her even more after Frederick's life story was published, because people thought his growing fame as a speaker would attract the attention of Thomas and Hugh Auld, Frederick's enslavers, who legally legally in quotes like still technically had ownership of him, like he had escaped, so they could go to the courts and say this guy belongs to me and taken back outrageous. So he had to get the hell out of there to avoid

being tracked down and sent back into slavery. So he hopped a boat and took off for Ireland and Great Britain. Again like the Crafts who also had to escape to England in a while because they were being searched for and they had to be housed and people had to hide them away from fugitive slave fugitive catchers or whatever they were called. Yeah, you had to put an ocean

between you and those guys to get away. And again it wasn't that long ago that you know, we're right in the Constitution and saying what a great country this is, and it I think William Kraft wrote about it where he was like, it was very strange to have to leave my great country in order to experience freedom and and safety of movements and protection under the law, protection and safety in the very country that you that the United States escaped from exactly all of their oppressive laws.

So it's a disconnect. Yeah, yeah, you know. So he's in Ireland and Great Britain and his lectures there would be backed to bursting with interested listeners, and you know, things weren't great in Ireland at the time. A fungus had just killed off half the potato crop for that year, which is big in Ireland. But even amongst all that, Frederick was astounded at what it was like to live

in a place without racial discrimination. He wrote, quote, I gaze around in vain for one who will question my equal humanity, or claim me as his slave, or offer me an insult. I employ a cab, I am seated by white people. I reached the hotel, I enter the same door, I am shown the same parlor, I dine at the same table, and no one is offended. I find myself regarded and treated at every turn with the kindness and deference paid to white people. It must have been so hard for them to do that, you know

what I mean? All that, No, it wasn't hard. It was like, it's incredible to me that. I mean, I know there's a whole lot of racism going on in England. And we've spoken before about for how many years before the Declaration of Independence was signed, England was definitely profiting off slavery in the US, but they got rid of it before we did. And according to people like the Crafts and Frederick Douglas. It was a whole. It was a paradise comparatively, you know, in terms of racial discrimination.

Obviously it's frustrating just looking back through history, but then thinking about being in that time and having two such obvious start contrasts to look at it, look at and say, but but it's fine. It's the modern world in both places. How come one of you is so backwards. It's really interesting because, as you say, there's certainly racism in other countries. Yeah, that terrible, bad racism. But um, I also know that there is a very speci ific racism directed towards African

Americans particularly. And there was this guy who he was from Africa and he came to America and he was talking on one podcast and I wish I could remember it was it was like a food he's like a chef guy. I think it was point of origin. Um. But he was talking about coming to America and working as a chef or as a cook and in the kitchens and stuff. And he was like, and people would be so horrible to me, and then they would hear my accent and it was like I was a better

black person because I wasn't from America. I was really from Africa, and I was like, that's so interesting to see that change happened right in front of you, that they think you're American and then suddenly you're oh you're Oh you're not. You're not a black American. So you're different, like better in some way or you deserve more respect or something. I don't know. It was just like we because we're trying to ascribe logic. Who are racists brain?

You know, and there's no logic and racism, you know, it doesn't make any sense. There's no way you can put it where you go, oh well okay, well that logically that makes it. There is none of that, you know what there is though, commercial crap. Sorry we've been going on. It is time for a commercial break and we will be right back with more after this and welcome back to the show. So Frederick Douglass spent two years overseas lucky, right, Like, I'm rarely going to say

Frederick Douglas was lucky. I'll just say it this month. But it sucks that he had to be there for that long. Seriously, he had to be away from Anna. This wasn't a vacation. Yeah, he couldn't go home, so he spent two years away from everyone. He was lecturing and befriending British abolitionists. And while he was there, his supporters, led by two women, Anna Richardson and her sister in law Ellen of Newcastle upon Time, which I just love.

I love those British um they raised the money to purchase his freedom from the all but so that he would be able to go back to America legally amazing. And of course everyone wanted him to stay in England because they were like, you're amazing, Frederick Douglas. I guess they were like, you're amazing, Frederick Douglas. Yeah, you know, so, yeah, everyone wants him to stay in England. But Frederick has his family back home. He's like, I want to go home.

And plus, not to mention, there was three nearly four million black people living in slavery still and he felt like, I have work to do at home, so he chose to go back in and he and Anna were really attracted by the very active abolitionists and women's rights movements

that were going on in Rochester, New York. Shout out to Rochester, so they moved their family from Massachusetts to Rochester and Frederick had five hundred pounds from his British supporters, which, if I can pull out the calculators, that's nearly forty seven thousand dollars today. So he got he took a two year trip to the UK and came back with dollars more than he left with. That is the opposite of what would happen does We definitely left our money there,

But I think that's cool. They raised not only enough money to purchase himself, which is a weird thing to say, but whatever, enough money for that, and also this extra money, Um, that's pretty rad. So it just goes to show how

popular he was over there. And he used this money to start his own abolitionist newspaper, North Star, in the basement of the Memorial A. M. E. Zion Church, and he and Anna also used their house as a stop on the Underground railroad and they provided safeboard, clean clothes and food to fugitives on their way to Canada. Anna of course main coordinator of that work because it's all

about domestic stuff, but their kids also pitched in. Their son Charles wrote later on in his life quote, we have often had to get up at midnight to admit a sleigh load and start fires to thaw the fugitives out. Every member of the family had to lend a hand to this work, and it was always cheerfully performed. Now, the North Star got glowing reviews, but they did struggle financially.

Not everyone in Rochester was happy to have yet another anti slavery newspaper published in their town, particularly when it was edited by a former slave. The New York Herald even encouraged its readers to dump Frederick's printing press into Lake, Ontario. Frederick returned to the lecturing circuit to pay for the costs of producing the newspaper, and even ended up putting

a mortgage on his house, but subscriptions grew slowly. But then a British friend, a white woman named Julia Griffiths, came in and helped him out, and that brings us to this episode's first side piece, May I help? Julia Griffiths was a British abolitionist. She met Frederick Douglas while he was in Ireland and Great Britain, and she'd been one of the many women who helped fundraise to send Frederick home with enough money to start North Star. So

when she heard it was struggling. She's like, oh no, we can't have that. And she moved to Rochester, New York, just moved her whole life there to become the editor and publisher of the paper and to handle the finances and get the money in order. And eventually, thanks to her, he was able to regain the mortgage on his home and the paper was on even financial footing within a few years. So thanks to Julia, um and Frederick also asked her to come live at his house in Rochester

and tutor Anna and their children. But with Anna she did fail. Rosetta Douglas Sprague wrote about her mother quote, Unfortunately an opportunity for knowledge of books was denied her, the lack of which she greatly deplored. Her increasing family and household duties prevented any great advancement. Although she was able to read a little, so she was a little too busy to be learning everything else because she was

making it all work. She's making their homework exactly. And also another historian, Rose O'Keefe pointed out that she was keeping their work, you know as being part of the underground railroad a secret. Also like you know, that's a

secret you can't tell people about that. So she was handling a lot, a very sensitive work and sensitive information and just balancing a lot in the background, makes sense, And Anna's illiteracy and her sort of lack of polish kind of led to a bit of a distance between her and her husband. Frederick was on the road a lot. He's this famous abolitionist lecturer. He's hob nobbing it with all the notable names of the day, while Anna's back home doing domestic work. Rosetta even wrote that because of

his frequent absences, quote, father was mother's honored guest. So it was like, you know, vibe in the house. Yeah, Like when he came home, it's like, oh, oh you're here, let me set up a bed for you or whatever. She's dead. It was like a flutter of activity every time his comings and goings and important events because he was such a I mean, he was coming and going a lot. Many of Frederick's white contemporaries in particular, kind of looked down on Anna. They saw no value in

her contributions to the household. Taylor as old as time. Women not getting enough credit for the very important work they're doing at home, and they didn't really see much more of her contributions to the underground Railroad. Either maybe, like you said, because it's a secret, it's not you're not supposed to go out there and flaunt all the

work you're doing for the underground Railroad. Um. But they're thinking was that she should be involved in the abolition movement in the same way Frederick was like, that would be more valuable, like he should be married to a woman as smart and well spoken as he is, or something like, No, she had smart in different ways. They had different things, right, different skill sets. They also got real racist about it. They would comment negatively about Anna's

dark skin, her facial features, her nose, her lips. They always mentioned that she was quote very black, which is just a coded way of saying that she wasn't pretty like. That was their way of pointing out, well, she's not pretty like I think pretty is just some more racist bullshit.

And unfortunately historians pretty much took this view as well, and they kind of wrote off Anna until very recently because now in history we're like coming to real terms with the idea that having a home support like Anna is what gave people like Frederick the freedom of time and movement. To do all the world changing that they did. I mean, yeah, we've talked about this before with even some of the women who managed to do amazing things.

And you have to notice that it's partly because they were pretty rich and they were comfortable, and they had time to sit and think about the human conditions, like when you're busy working and trying to feed yourself, you

just don't have that kind of freedom. And I think people are realizing it more now because so many more people do both and have to do both, and so they're like, oh, ship, what happened all the innovations, what happened to all the No one has time because they they're doing the work that Anna was doing to write. This historian leave Out, who wrote The Women in the World of Frederick Douglas, told USA Today, quote, this is

real woman behind the man stuff. I think it's important for people to remember how much he respected her and relied on her. Women's history has forced people to look at the role that women played in making great men great now. Julia also became Frederick's office and business manager and his almost constant companion. She arranged his lectures, she

would accompany him to meetings. She was still managing the papers, finances and people in Rochester apparently just we're pearl clutching for a little while and just had to get used to seeing this black leader and his white assistant walking arm in arm down the street. She was also a founding member of the Rochester Ladies Anti Slavery Society, the Rochester Ladies. Stop, you gotta stop about the Last, Our Last, the Rochester Last. That's better than the Rochester Ladies, and

I think it's more respectful. She published an anthology of anti slavery literature called Autographs for Freedom that was so popular it had to have a second edition, and she used the money that she raised with Our Last to support North Star, the newspaper, as well as establishing a school for freedmen in Kansas, distributing anti slavery literature in Kentucky, and providing small cash gifts to fugitives along the underground Railroad to finance their journeys to freedom, because it takes

money to take a journey, as you know. And at least a hundred and thirty six enslaved people were helped by the society directly in this way. Okay, Julia, um, So that's really dope. And I was enjoying learning about these little Rochester and Boston, these these chapters of these anti slavery societies, because you have to remember that, like it took a lot of little community organizing to create

a nationwide change. And it seems just because we're so much taught from one war to the next, you never really get the lead up. You don't hear about all the really boring grassroots, annoying, tiny, small you know, one step forward, two steps back, work that was happening for decades before the thing actually came to fruition. So these

ladies were doing that hard stuff. You often feel like it takes some giant to help, you know, many millions of p people at a time to make a big difference in the world, and it has often not that. It's often this organization helped a hundred and thirty six people, That one helped seventy Holy crap, this one helped three hundred, Like, you know, that's I think that's how it's got to be. Yeah, Also, if I can get us to pass the Bechdel test here real quick, do you think Julia was working with Anna?

Because Anna did so much fund a round railroad. I imagine they must have been having some some collaborative conversations as well. Right, that is a great question. I would love to speculate about that. I think I would love to just say that Julia was not a piece of ship to Anna. I would like to assume that. Um,

so hopefully that'd be cool. If she's like, hey, you know, like what would really help in your ground railroad And she's like, well, honestly they need money to get to Canada where Rochester were pretty close but a lot close. They still need money. Julie is like, oh, if it's something I know how to do, it's raised a pound or two. Yes. So by this time him Frederick was

also advocating for the right for women to vote. He was the only black person to attend the first Women's Rights Convention at Seneca Falls in eighty and he had also had a falling out with his abolitionist friend William Lloyd Garrison in eighteen seven. See Garrison felt that the Constitution itself was inherently pro slavery because of the three five clause, and he would actually go out and publicly burn copies of the Constitution to make his point. It's

like this, He's like an older white guy. So I just love imagining him. It's like this punk performance ars like what is this document? This is garbage? Set it on fire, so like radical, I love it. And at

first Frederick totally agreed with him. But later Frederick heard more persuasive arguments from Lysander Spooner examining the Constitution as an anti slavery document, and this kind of changed Frederick's position, and this caused one of the abolition movements most notable divisions, because these two famous men kind of went head to head arguing their points in their respective newspapers. Yeah and yeah,

it was just I think for Frederick Douglas. Here, you know, on one side, you've got a guy being like, funk this whole document that this country is based on. And on the other side, you've got a guy going, actually, we could read this as this document protects freedoms of all men. It says so right here, quality everywhere, Um so why not use it? And I think Frederick was like,

which one's gonna work? And it seems a lot harder to be like, let's completely rewrite the entire constitution that we just wrote, or actually, we can just amend this one existing one, So I think it was just more about what's going to win, that's the main thing. But shortly after they're falling out, Garrison with no real evidence, by the way, accused Frederick and Julia of having an affair, and so this rumor was going around for several years

that they were actually sleeping together and not just working together. Um, and so Anna had to hear all these whisperings about that ship while she was pregnant with her and Frederick's fifth child, Annie, who was born at the end of eighteen forty nine. There's no evidence to support this claim now, and it does feel like classic bullshit behavior from someone who's Mattie and also super sexist to be like, oh, well,

there's a woman working with you. Well, people will believe it if I say that you're sleeping with her, then you know, and uh they you know. He was accused a number of times of having affairs and partly you know, to discredit his work as an abolitionist, and it worked, I guess, because it played into the stereotype of African American men being like this over sext impossible, it can't be faithful, just totally out of control type of people.

Even back then, this that stereotype was present very much. So yes, so yeah, they That's frustrating to me that Garrison did it because he supposedly cares about ending slavery, but but he wants to tear down one of the major names in the movement. Says to me, he doesn't care so much about the end goal. He just cared about being right. He's like, I want my argument to win, so I don't really care what happens to you. Like,

that's maddening to me. I don't know. Obviously I didn't look at whim Lloyd Garrison's life story for this, but I was mad at him in this moment. So in eighteen fifty two, Julia moved out of the Douglas house, and she was hoping that this would kind of lay this rumor to rest that they were having an affairs, like I'm gonna just kind of distance myself a little bit physically from you, Um. But they still worked together.

She was still a colleague of his and a confidante Um as he continued his very important work in eighteen fifty two. On July five, he gave his famous speech What to the Slave Is the fourth of July, which one biographer called quote perhaps the greatest anti slavery oration ever given. So what do you say. We go over to the podium and here's some of it. Yeah, I feel fine reading Frederick Douglas's words. Well, we have to

do that a lot on this show. But no, because I think this is a really cool speech and it's important to hear it. It is well, and we just had a recent, you know, kind of national conversation about Juneteenth and why you know there might be a different celebration of the freedom of this country for the black community because they have a different from day of freedom than we do then white people do. So. Yeah, So, not playing Frederick Douglas, but rather sharing with you his words,

we'll read some of this speech, he says. Quote. I say it with a sad sense of the disparity between us. I am not included within the pale of this glorious anniversary. Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. The blessings in which you this day rejoice are not enjoyed in common. The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity, and independence bequeathed by your fathers is shared by you, not by me. The sunlight that brought life and healing

to you has brought stripes and death to me. This Fourth of July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn. What to the American slave is your fourth of July? I answer a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham, your boasted liberty and unholy license, your national greatness swelling vanity. Your sounds

of rejoicing are empty and heartless. Your denunciation of tyrants brass fronted impudence, Your shouts of liberty and equality hollow mockery. Your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are to him mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy, a thin veil to cover up crimes which

would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of these United States at this very hour. Damn, I mean lays it all out for you. I mean he really it's a it's a long speech and he basically lays out the entire history of the country so far in it. And it's very interesting to see his perspective on it, and that I love that he was so fiery. He did not pull punches.

He said exactly what he meant right, what was true, But he didn't try to, you know, Sugarcoata for anybody. It's fascinating to me. But there were rumors about Julia that were still swirling Julian and Frederick's Tarrett affair, allegedly thanks a lot Garss, he probably just kept bringing it up, you know, every time he did something cool, they'd be like, well, but he is fucking a secretary or whatever, you know.

So Julius sees all this and she recognizes that this is detrimental to the anti slavery work that needed to be done. So in eighteen fifty five she decided the best thing to do was to go back to England, and while there she did continue to write columns for Frederick Tunklus's paper, and she continued to raise funds for the Rochester Ladies Anti Slavery Society, and she continued to organize other anti slavery societies as well. Eighteen de nine she married a minister. Big up to Julia. You know,

she kept moving. I love too that hearing how many people were working towards the cause of ending slavery in America, that we weren't even in America, like that should even that they don't even live here, you know what I mean? And they're like, what is happening over there? Well, and I really respect to that. She looked around and she said, well, what I want is to stay here and hang out with my friend Frederick and do the work that I can do here. But this is bigger than me. I

can't just it's not about what I want. So I guess the best thing for the thing that I care about, Mr Garrison is to leave Mr Garrison exactly she saw she put the goal ahead of herself, and I don't think he did. Again, I don't have any speculation. Station William Lord Garrison was like, OK, Mr Douglas in this instance, it really does look like that. So that's pretty dope of Julia. We like Julia here. Yeah, so far, hopefully they weren't having an a fair. It would be really

weird for her to live in Anna's house. I would not like that. We would have a real problem with that an issue. But given the fact that there's no evidence towards that affair, Frederick and Anna continued to have their marriage the whole time they were there, seemingly happily, you know, all things considered, I don't I don't think we can assume that there was one. So we like Julia, Yeah,

well say, on this show, Julia is cool. Yeah, But less than a year after Julia left, another white woman arrived in Frederick's life and caused a bit more of an upset. So let's find out more about her right after this commercial break and welcome back to the show. So in eighteen fifty six, a lady showed up literally knocking on Frederick and Anna's door, and she's like, hey,

I want to translate your latest work into German. And that brings us to Audily austing this episode second side Knock Knock, and most of our information about Audily comes from a book called Love Across Color Lines by Maria Diedrich. Audally Austin was born to middle class Jewish parents in Germany. Seems like she was kind of a rebel from society, you know, she grew up with like pretty revolutionary ideal. She had a very good education, and she liked to

flaunt society's moray's for women she worked. For example, she worked as a tutor for a famous actor's kids, and she was probably his lover. And she really took a lot of satisfaction from the scandal that arose because of their affair. And it was is kind of because she felt like, I you know, that shows you how unconventional I am. I'm not like other girls, you know what I mean. She was one of the I was like

type of ladies. She's very proud of how different she is and how oh I don't even care about your weird little tight wad rules. I'm very special, you know. And she became a journalist. She wrote columns for a German newspaper, but thanks to growing anti semitism and restrictions to the press, she fled to America in eighteen fifty two and made her home in Hoboken, New Jersey. That's the culture shock for real. But of course, if you hadn't heard, uh, there is also anti semitism here, so

that she faced that problem right off the bat. Plus America already had a little disdain for immigrants, and her experience as a Jewish German woman made oddly very interested in America's racial dynamics. And this is this is something that's in that's fascinating because it's other countries are hearing the promise of the constitution too, you know what I mean. It wasn't just people within the country. So it's gonna

wait a minute, this don't make sense. They get here and they're like, but it says it's the document right here, that's yeah, and they're like, get out of here, you German German. So her interests in these whacka do American racial politics is what led her to Frederick Douglas's literal Door. She thought that translating his writing would help German readers really understand what it was like in the US. Diedrich writes that autoly was quote completely taken by Douglas's powerful

male presence. Oh yeah, she she got this pretty much right away. As soon as he opened the door. She's like, oh my, so this might have been love at first sight for her. They started writing to each other frequently, as she arranged to translate his second autobiography, My Undage, My Freedom and starting in eighteen fifty seven, she spent every summer in the Douglas family home, working with him

and tutoring his kids for twenty two years. Thanks to all the gossip that was spread about Julia Griffith's and they're alleged affair, Addily thought quote the Douglas marriage had been over long before she entered the scene, according to Diedrich, and she was quote unable or perhaps unwilling to see Anna as a fellow human being and a woman. And

she wrote disdainfully of Anna's blackness and her illiteracy. And generally historians do agree that there was some kind of physical relationship going on between Frederick and uh and Addily um, that there was kind of an affair here. Yeah. Diedrich's book is based solely on letters that Addoly wrote to her sister. So she admits that it's it's most it's very unsided story, right, Um, But she was like, it's

more than likely. And then one of Frederick Douglas's biographers also said, yeah, it's more than likely they were having a physical relation. She's so so okay. So even though she's in this woman's home right tutoring her children and and sleeping with her husband. She's got to add insult to injury. She's gotta kicker while she's down and start talking about her too. Yeah, it's being totally disdainful of Anna. She's ruining her life in this hospitality being extended to

you that day. Like I picture Anna making her breakfast. That's what's making me mad, Like she's sucking giving her eggs and shit. I don't know. It just would make me furious. And I mean not to not to absolve Frederick of any guilt here either, because look, dude, like you just escaped in a fair scandal. What are you doing. You knew how damaging it was when someone made it up?

What are you doing now doing it? Doing exactly and of course historically makes it more suspicious with Julia, right, Oh well he did do with Audily, So why not Julie. You know what I mean, there's only people like Frederick. I was defending you. I was defending you. I know you've got a lot going on, but respect your wife, please, geez. But that seemed to track for Addily. She sort of

had a lot of contempt for most people. She really just a lot better than most people, especially apparently the wives of the men that she to sleep with exactly so addily not my favorite person in this story, I'll say that. Well. Meanwhile, Frederick is dealing with some even bigger drama than what's going on in his house, because in March of eighteen fifty nine, he took a meeting

with the radical abolitionist John Brown to discuss emancipation. A while later, John Brown stayed at Frederick's house shortly before he led his famous raid on Harper's Ferry, and he even formed some of his plans at while he was staying with Frederick Douglas, and at some point he Frederick Douglas admitted to this meeting years later. Years later, but it turned out that he had met with John Brown in like an abandoned stone quarry at night or something.

John Brown was like laying out all his plans to be like, we're gonna me in my secret six over here, going to raid Harper's Ferry Arsenal, We're going to arm all the slaves and we're gonna incite a rebellion you in bro you know. And Frederick Douglas was like, no, I am not in that sounds He said the plan was suicidal. Yeah, like no, I'm gonna nope right out of that proposition, and John Brown went on to do

what John Brown did. But after the raid went down in October of eighteen fifty nine, Frederick was accused of both supporting John Brown and of not supporting John Brown. Own enough classics, So if you think all the wishy washiness of today is anything new, it's not. We've been obnoxious forever. Um. He was almost arrested in Virginia for playing a part in the raid, even though again he was not there um, which could have led to his execution. Um. So he had to flee to Canada for a little while.

He actually stayed with Audily in Hoboken for a minute, like while he was hiding from the law, and then he moved. He went on up to Canada before then going on to a previously planned lecture tour in Scotland, so he was safe while he was over there. But tragically, in eighteen sixty, only a few days before her eleventh birthday, Annie Douglas died and Frederick canceled the rest of his tour and he went home. He traveled through Canada to avoid arrest, and after Annie's death, Anna Murray was also

often in ill health. Yeah, and I mean, I'll say, I guess it's speculation station a little bit, but I'm thinking about Anna. She's at home all the time, right, like she's she's taking care of the house stuff, She's got her her kids there. I mean, this girl is ten years old. She's barely seeing anyone else. People come through in the underground railroad, they come and go just as quickly. You know. She's she's got her groups that she's organizing with, but she spends so much time at home.

Frederick's Common and going. He's barely over there. And then these these people out there talking shit about her and her family. She's got a woman who sometimes staying at her house talking shit about her. Like I'm saying, her kids were probably also like her best friends in a little bit, in a little way, Yeah, I can see that at very least the center of her child. Definitely, it would be just really sad. Now. Also in the

year eighteen sixty, a Republican candidate named are you Abraham Lincoln? Oh? Abe? Is that you? He won the presidential election and he was running on the platform that was anti slavery expansion. So the party at the time wasn't really trying to end slavery outright everywhere. They were just going to keep

it from being legal in new territories like Missouri. Partly because slavery, like we said, just wasn't really popular at this time outside of some loud, heavy pockets, you know, predominantly in the South, but surely throughout the whole country. A lot of people were coming around the idea. They're like, maybe this isn't so good. But also partly because this was going to give the North larger representation than the

Southern states in Congress and the electoral College. The Southern states didn't like that because that was going to impede them from passing all the pro slavery legislation that they wanted. And in fact, of course, they threatened to succeed if Republicans won the election. So that's what they did, forming the Confederate States and kicking off our very own Civil War in eighteen sixty one. Frederick spent the early part of the war advocating for allowing black soldiers into the army.

Um he was kind of, listen, this war is about slavery, so you should allow black people to fight for their freedom. It only makes sense. He acted as an adviser to Lincoln throughout the war, advocating for suffrage and civil rights, and by eighteen sixty three, Congress passed a bill allowing black men into the army, and Frederick's own son, Charles, was the first black man to enlist in New York and his oldest son, Lewis, fought at the Battle of

Fort Wagner, and Frederick Jr. Served as a recruiter. So he was willing to put his kids up for this, you know what I mean? Like he was like, I'm not just talking, I mean it. And on January one, eighteen sixty three, Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, which stated that slaves in the South were free and that ending slavery was the ultimate goal of winning the Civil War. And it was apparently a very good idea of Frederick's to allow black soldiers into the army because it gave

the Union army a huge edge. They had a ton more people than the South did, and the South, the Confederate States, were aid to do it because they would then admit that, oh, you're like people capable and so on, so they were afraid to do it. So it really

gave the North like quite an edge. Plus you like bond with your fellow soldiers a lot too, So probably a lot of people would come back from the war going like, wait this, my buddy has to go back into slavery now exactly, were like, you can't mingle that way. It changes everything. They knew that because it's such a

tenuous bullshit that it was all bolts on. So it's like, we're afraid, and it literally helped them lose, right, And you also probably get the edge too of the fact that you've got not only all these additional bodies on your side, but who have a serious steak. You know. I wonder about this sometimes because I think we've talked before about how despite the pro slavery movement in the South, how many Southerners actually had the wealth to own slaves themselves.

You know. So I imagine there's a lot of like poor kids drafted into the army who don't don't even really understand what they're fighting for, uh, you know, and so they probably don't care as much as you've got people literally fighting for their freedom. Yeah. Absolutely, yeah. So even so during the presidential elections in eighteen sixty four, Frederick Douglas supported a different candidate because he was disappointed

that Lincoln didn't support black men's right to vote. But after Lincoln was assassinated in April of eighteen sixty five, Frederick was chosen to deliver the keynote speech at the unveiling of the Emancipation Memorial, and without pulling any punches, because you know, Frederick don't pull punches, he both criticized and praised Lincoln, calling him quote the white Man's President and saying that he should have gotten into the cause of emancipation earlier in his life, but that no one

black or white could deny that he had put his money where his mouth was to eliminate the institution of slavery. He said, quote the old Mr. Lincoln shared the prejudices of his white fellow countrymen against the negro It is hardly necessary to say that, in his heart of hearts, he loathed and hated slavery. Douglas got a standing ovation for his speech, and Lincoln's widow, Mary Todd, even gave

Frederick Lincoln's favorite walking stick. It's pretty cool that he got that, even when he was being so real about the man himself. You know, I think that's cool. That shows you what a great speechmaker he must have been, because he was able to really draw lines, you know,

very carefully. Now, during the war, Oddily and Frederick had still been collaborating or publishing articles in her German paper and his American one urging the country to end slavery and integrate the army and all those all those things that he was advocating for. But Addily, in letters to her sister, seemed hundred percent certain that as soon as emancipation was achieved, it would mean that Frederick Douglas was no longer in the public eye, and that would mean

that he could leave his wife Anna and finally marry her. Wow, she had like a whole map drawn in her head that I don't think he knew about um. But she was wrong about that, because the fight was not over with the Emancipation Proclamation. Surprised the Emancipation Proclamation didn't end the problems for black people in America. Now, in eighteen sixty five, the Thirteenth Amendment outlawed slavery quote except as punishment for a crime. That left that little line of problems.

Some evil crawled through that loop. In eighteen sixty eight, the Fourteenth Amendment guaranteed citizenship to former enslaved people, and in eighteen seventy the Fifteenth Amendment ensured voting rights, so civil rights for black men at least were codified into law because women still couldn't vote, you know. Um, But all that progress meant that white supremacists acted very quickly to curb all these right as much as they could

with restrictions. Other bullshits groups such as the Ku Klux, Klan and other violent insurgent groups formed very quickly at this time as well. The reconstruction period was leading swiftly in the direction of reasserting white supremacy and disenfranchising black citizens. So, of course what happened about ten years after the war ended, we were voting for nothing but assholes. So Frederick was like, I still got a lot of work to do here.

The fight's not over with just ending slavery. There's clearly a lot more going on. So he conferred with President Ulysses S. Grant about race issues, um, supporting his candidacy and encouraging him to sign the Civil Rights Act of eighteen seventy one, which is also called the Klan Act, and other enforcement acts that basically allowed the president to suspend Habeas Corpus and send in the troops to suppress all this white violence against black people and to ensure

their rights to vote and to hold office. And all this protecting of civil rights for black people made Grant pretty unpopular with a lot of shitty white people at the time, but Frederick and his his friends and family were and his associates were big fans. They wrote about Grants that African Americans quote, will ever cherish a grateful remembrance of his name, fame, and great services. Well there

you go. Now. In eighteen seventy two, Frederick became the first black person to be nominated for vice president of the United States when Victoria Woodhull in the Equal Rights Party ran for president and selected him as her running mate without his prior knowledge or consent. So he wakes up one day it is like, I'm I'm what, I'm running for vice president? Do you think? Like like stretching on? And then he opened the newspaper and oh, Frederick Douglas

is the running with Frederick Ducklas. I'm Frederick Tucklas, speas me exactly. Well, that same year, Frederick and Anna's home in Rochester burned down, and this was likely due to arson, of course, all that white violence we were just talking about. Most of their belongings were burned, including the only complete archive of his north Star paper. They moved after that to Washington, d C. And Anna continued to manage their

home while Frederick continued to lecture and advocate. Audily started to argue with him about the future and about his children, who she thought were feckless and they had I mean, we will say they did rely on his financial support, you know, for years, for a long time, well into

their adult lives. But attention and estrangement sprang up between Frederick and addly after this, in eight seventy six, Audily went on a European trip, hoping Frederick would just follow along, but he was immersed in his life and his work in the US, and he made no move to join her. Also, he was married to Anna. You know, She's like, I've just leave Anne. He was like, okay, bye, I'm going. Are you sure doors open? You can follow, There's an

extra seat. I'll leave. I'll really do it. I bet she would write him a lot and be like, today I'm in Perry. You want to join music? Okay. In eighteen seventy seven, Frederick and Anna moved into Cedar Hill, which is the estate that was the family's final home and where the Frederick Douglas National Historic Site is now located. And Frederick was appointed the Recorder of Deeds in Washington, d c. Which he accepted because it's secured his family's

financial feature. And then in August of eighteen eighty two, after a series of strokes, Anna Murray Douglas passed away and Frederick was by all accounts devastated by this loss. So if anyone's trying to act like he didn't love his wife, yeah, he definitely did. Um. He made no attempt to contact Addie overseas, but he did be friend his new next door neighbor, a woman named Helen Pitts.

Helen was the daughter of Gideon and Jane Pitts. They were abolitionists and suffragists, and after the Civil War, Helen taught at a school in Virginia that educated black men and women, and she caused some local controversy when she accused residents there of abusing her students, and she got them arrested for it. So Virginians were like grumble grumble,

how dare a white lady do that, you know? And that's when she moved home with her parents next door to Frederick Douglas, and she started co editing a women's rights magazine called The Alpha. So Frederick hired Helen to work in the deeds office as his secretary not long after they met, and in four he resigned that office and he married Helen a year and a half after Anna's death. Helen was twenty years younger than him, but

nobody cared about that. They cared about the fact that he was black and she was white, and that really messed with their brains. They couldn't handle it. Even though her parents were abolitionists and admired Frederick Douglas, they still did not like her marrying a black man, and they stopped speaking to her for the rest of her life. And yes, support Frederick Douglas not like that. Even Frederick's

own children didn't like this marriage. They thought that it was a repudiation of their mother Anna, which is not uncommon. I think sometimes when a parent remarries, Sure, I have to wonder if they knew anything about oddly right and how they felt about her as a repudiation because Anna was still alive when he was seeing there. So it's like, which is worse. I'm sure they didn't liked surely, or they just didn't know, you know what I mean. But they were being tutored by her for years, and I'm

like they had they knew her a little. I mean, I wanted if they heard any of these rumors anyway, But regardless of what anybody else thought, Helen and Frederick went ahead with it anyway. Helen said, quote, love came to me, and I was not afraid to marry the man I loved because of his color. And Frederick Douglas commented, quote, this proves I am impartial. My first wife was the color of my mother and the second the color of

my father. But what about Addally, Well, she is in Europe fighting for a claim to her sister's estate when she heard the news about this little union, and it must be said, this is a bad time for Addily. She had just been diagnosed with breast cancer, so she is already in ill health when she heard that her lover of twenty six years was not ever going to marry her, and had in fact married another white woman twenty years younger than her. And so she responded dramatically.

The following August, she went to a Paris park and drink a vial of cyanide and died by suicide. All her letters from Frederick had been burned, and she left him the income of hert dollar state, which let's see, if I could pull the calculator at again, that would be hard three hundred and sixty one thousand, five hundred and nine dollars today, so not an inconsiderable amount of money. Money.

So she left him this income in her will and stipulated that it should be delivered in semi annual installments to him for the rest of his life. Now, some sources paint this as like a sign of her undying love and devotion to Frederick Douglas, perhaps his cause is or whatever. Um Maria Diedrich writes that it was quote a more substantial way of haunting him. Oh yeah, I guess.

Just again, it's all based on her book. So the character that she has definitely put together of this woman is not flattering, right, And I kind of buy that that She was like, I'm just going to make him have to look at my name every few months for the rest of his life. He's going to have to remember me. I wonder if she was not well. I mean, you know, she was definitely, like we said before, like

was kind of living in a different reality. She had a very different perspective on their relationship than he clearly had. And I don't obviously we don't know. We can only speculations station about it. But it doesn't seem that he maybe let her on. He probably didn't even have time to make her think that their relationship was something other than it was. It seems like he was very clear, like, yeah, I'm not going to Europe with you or anything. But no,

she did struggle with depression. She had had suicidal ideation in her past before, so that's definitely true. She was not like stable in that way. I guess um, But yeah, I do question it. I'm like, I guess a lover of twenty six years. It makes it seem like they were together every day maybe or something. But again, she's only spent summers at his house. I wonder if they even did a lot at his house, because I was

right there as kids are there. I wonder if that made a difference or not um or if it was really sporadic and it was just like when you can. We did, but it wasn't like a priority to Frederick Defris. You know, I don't think it was. She was like a major, like he's like, oh, I gotta make time for Oddily today. Drew Gilpin Faustum, in his review of Diedrich's book for The New York Times, wrote quote, Oddly austing is in Diedrich's portrait, an interesting but hardly likable figure.

An intellectual elitist, she had little time for those she regarded as her inferiors. This rendered her contemptuous of many men and almost all other women. Yet for all her professed commitments to romantic individualism and female freedom, she ended up the victim of her own dependence on a man, and of her longing for the very conventions of marriage that her words and act had so long scorned. Which

is like a sad note, but she had. Maria Diedrich had also noted that when she was having the affair back in Germany with the famous actor very similar, she was like, oh, I'm his equal partner, but actually she was giving him most of her money, and everything was about him and what he wanted, so she was still kind of subsuming her whole life in the man and so it's sort of like she really wanted to be this like rebellious figure and she lived her life like

she was like above everyone. But she really wanted some really traditional stuff. And it's too bad that she didn't feel like she could do both. I guess I'm sad for her that she felt like she had to act like a bitch in order to be a different type of woman or better quote unquote better type of woman. Right. It seems like she's one of those people, like a woman who had to put other women down so that she could feel superior to the idea of what women are,

you know, which is no, no, no help. Yes great. Yeah. Meanwhile, Frederick Douglas and Helen had a very happy marriage. They had similar intellectual interests and they shared a commitment to women's suffrage. She played piano, he played violin, and they both played croquet at their home in Cedar Hill. They took a trip to Europe together, which must have piste off Autoly from beyond the Grave, right, I mean I just saw like a dabbing like, oh, now you want

to go. Since Frederick had been appointed a U S Marshal for d C. In eighteen seventy seven, he attended presidential Galler receptions and she accompanied him. Frederick wrote to a friend that the marriage quote brought strong criticism, but there is peace and happiness within. On February Frederick Douglas attended a meeting of the National Council of Women, and they brought him up to a platform and gave him a standing ovation. And like, everybody knows how great Frederick

Douglas is the cause of women's suffrage. But that night he had a mass of heart attack and died at the age of seventy seven. I just love that on his last night he got a standing ovation from everybody for his amazing life and all he did. Like I just the timing of that's nice to me. Yeah, I would love it. Hope it all work it out so I would get a standing ovation on my last hour. Now we'll be worried every time I get a standing ovation.

Oh my god, is this Fortunately, don't get any standing ovations. I'll give you a standing ovation every day when I stand up out of bed and I clap and I say get up. That doesn't count, that does not count. But then you stand up and I cheer sarcastically for you. That still doesn't feel like it's definitely not the same. That's what Frederick Douglas Scott, you getting out of bed. I guess I got a Douglas to get Frederick Douglas

claps yes, so yes. Frederick Douglas was hell the in state in d C. Thousands of people, of course attended his funeral. He came to see his body laying in state and everything and pay their respects, but they laid him to rest in Rochester, where he had made his home for most of his life at the Mount Hope Cemetery,

right next to Anna Murray. And he had left Cedar Hill to Helen, his wife of the past eleven years, but there weren't enough witnesses to validate that bequest, so they said it did not count and she did not get the home out right, And so Helen suggested to the Douglas children that they should set Cedar Hill aside as a memorial to their father and like have it managed by a board of trustees and stuff. So it wasn't like about her personally gaining from It's like, I

won't touch it, you know, it's just for him. But the kids who again. You know had been relying on dou on Frederick Douglas income, I guess a lot, and his name probably too for support. They just wanted to sell the estate and divide the money equally amongst them. So get this, Helen borrowed a bunch of money and bought the place herself to pay off the Airs and the other family members. So she had to raise the

money to buy what had already been bequeathed to her. Outrageous, but she devoted the rest of her life to planning and establishing the Frederick Douglas Memorial and Historical Association. She got Congress to pass a law incorporating the association and worked to raise money to maintain the estate, lecturing throughout the Northeast for years. But near the end of her life,

contributions were falling off. Helen was in poor health and it looked like her life's work preserving Frederick's life's work wasn't going to pan out. But a prominent black reverend named Francis Grimkey, the reverend who had married Helen and Frederick, suggested that she sell the property and create college scholarships in her and Frederick's names, and initially she agreed, but she said only at the scholarships were only in Frederick's name and not in hers, which I get, which is,

you know, as a sign of respect. It's like about preserving this great man's legacy. I also hate that instinct to write yourself out. She was like, well, don't put me in there. And I'm like, well, but you did stuff no worries if not. It was called the no Worries if not Scholarship. But in nineteen o three Helen changed her mind. She's pretty much nearing the end of her life at this point, she knew it, and she wrote to Reverend grimm Key begging for his help if

the mortgage was not paid off before she died. She wrote, quote, if the colored people think so little of Mr Douglas and his great services that they cannot raise this small sum, it will stand as an everlasting disgrace and reproach to the race. See to it that you do not allow my plan for Cedar Hill to fail? Are you strong word there? But you know she's desperate, she's about to die. She's like, please pay for this, come on now. So I wonder if he was reading it, like why do

you get to this last it was just race. You can still be racist when you're trying to fight for Frederick Douglas's legacy. You know, she had a lot to unpack,

all right, we were just learning about now. But after Helen died in nineteen o three, she was buried next to Frederick in Mount Hope Cemetery as well, and the mortgage for Cedar Hill was reduced from five thousand, five hundred dollars to four thousand dollars, and the National Association of Colored Women, led by Mary b. Tealbert of Buffalo, raised the money to buy Cedar Hill. It's now administered by the National Park Service and they give tours of

his home. It houses memorabilia like Lincoln's favorite walking stick, and informs guests of his contributions to freedom. Just as Helen was hoping, that's awesome, which I love. So the boy, the whole group just came together raise the money, which is they and they and they're probably like not because of what Helen said, which we found a little condescendant, but because we wanted to, which I mean, that's that's

what really struck me reading this story or learning his story. Um, you know, his daughter, Rosetta's brig other historians like leaf Out and Rose O'Keefe and more. You know, we're saying there really is no Frederick Douglas without Anna Murray, that she does not get enough credit for the part she played in his legacy. And we talked about that a little bit through the episode, that she was, you know, making the space for him to build his career. He

couldn't have done it without her. Plus she got him out of slavery, also pretty important part of the story. Um I would add that women in general didn't get enough credit for the part they played in Frederick's story because it wasn't just Anna, right. His mother, for st of all, gave him a great sense of pride, a sense of himself as to being able to teach himself and learn and have the capacity to learn. I think his mom was a really strong shape in his in

his mind, see you know what I mean. I think she really was important in his development as a kid. And then of course Anna Murray helped him escape. She supported financially, women in England raised the money for him to buy his freedom and for him to start his paper they've you know started. They basically financed his startup. Julia Griffiths kept that paper afloat by handling the financials and raising money audibly, even though she's a bit problematic,

shared his words with an entire new audience. She was opening them up in a whole other countries and translating his work into many different languages and to a whole other language. She also housed him when he was on the run from the law, and then Helen worked to preserve his legacy for the rest of generations so we would know anything about him and all the work that he did. And women raised the money to pay for

that preservation. So it's just women throughout his life. Yeah, that were like, this guy is getting ship done, let's help him out. And I think if without those women, I'm not sure he would have gotten as far as he right now. They really were the wind beneath his wings. Well, and you can even look at it as not so much as like women supporting Frederick Douglas, but women who wanted to get something done had to find a guy to be their face for those things to get done.

So it was a way for women to do things that they were trying to accomplish, sort of just like a you know, borrowing Frederick Douglas's persona, UM to be able to get things done that they were trying to get done. Yeah, pretty phenomenal. Well, and even a shitty slave owning white woman is the reason you learned how to read in the first place, So I guess that's true too. I'm just like, it was just hundreds of women that that really ensured his legacy. And I'm not

trying to take away from Frederick Douglas. Oh yeah, no, not at all. Obviously we're talking about it. Very intelligent and brave and cool dude, right, who did a lot of great things. But the obscured part is all these ladies that were standing behind him. It wasn't It wasn't just well, you know, behind every great man is one great woman. Behind him were hundreds of women, all working really hard and doing their little piece, and that's what

they got, you know, to contribute. I mean, you see so often in history in general, that one great person is often many great people. UM. And then how often in history the women in that circle are not studied, cast aside or or even like in um. In a Clementine Churchill's case, like didn't feel like she should make a big fuss about what she was doing to help. You know, so for years nobody knew about it because even she wasn't being vocal about it. Um. Yeah, it's

it's it's really amazing kind of what we're seeing. And I think it's cool. I mean again, because people now have to come home and cook the meal and wash the dishes and make sure the laundry is done. And I'm get tired, and they're like, man, I used to write screenplays. What happened to that? I'll tell you what happened. You don't have an ANNIMALI that allowed you that that space.

So anyway, UM, I just loved learning more about all these ladies and his this crazy oddly it's really great, Like just now that sexism is over, so we can look at these things in a different way. Yes, sexism is done. Actually, I don't know if you guys, if you heard they made the announcement yesterday sexism over. Very exciting. Algorithm should have fed me that one, but I missed it. No, they didn't want to get you all emotional about it. You know. They were like, she'll get all riled up.

We can't tell your sexism is over. Should we get all emotional about it. Jeez. Oh, you never know, it might be that time of the month. I got and I throw my phone across the room. Well dessert, oh man. So yeah, I hope you enjoyed this story as much as I did. I'm learning about Frederick Douglas amazing, man. I love learning about all these women standing beside him and around him and everywhere around him. Get making that

ship happen, And I hope you did too. Definitely, please reach out to us and tell us what you thought. Our email is ridic Romance at gmail dot com right, or you can find us on social media on Twitter and Instagram. I'm at oh great, It's Eli, I'm at Danamite Boom. And of course the show is at ridic Romance, so follow along. Hey, have you dropped us review on Apple podcast yet? Should totally do that. It's a really good way to give yourself a little emotional boost for

the day. You'll feel great about it, and we'll be back theater this week with more exciting episodes and we'll catch it in can't Wait. Love you by so long. Friends, It's time to go. Thanks so listening to our show. Tell your friends neighbor's uncles in dance to listen to a show ridiculous roll dance m