Frederick Douglass

Frederick Douglass was an emancipated slave who passed from one master to another until he finally found the satisfaction of being his own; he went through almost as many names as masters. His mother's family name, traceable at least as far back as 1701 (FD, 5) was Bailey, the name he bore until his flight to freedom in 1838. His father may or may not have been a white man named Anthony, but Douglass never firmly validated or …

…gift of language underwent yet another transformation, and his words became a healing balm and a fixer of wrongs. From slavery to freedom, from the South to the North, from a young man of many names to the adult named Frederick Douglass, in revealing songs of happiness to be ones of woe, and 'singing' those songs so that all could hear, this gifted man helped America come to terms with slavery as it really was.