Archive for February, 2019
“The Lost History of Frederick (Bailey) Douglass in Baltimore” @ Enoch Pratt Central Library –> Thurs, February 28, 2019 at 6:30 PM
Posted by jmullerwashingtonsyndicate in Uncategorized on February 27, 2019
The Lost History of Frederick (Bailey) Douglass in Baltimore
John Muller, author of Frederick Douglass in Washington, D.C.: The Lion of Anacostia and Mark Twain in Washington, D.C.: The Adventures of a Capital Correspondent, will present “The Lost History of Frederick (Bailey) Douglass in Baltimore” using newly discovered information found in the Baltimore City Archives, Maryland Historical Society, Enoch Pratt Free Library, and private archives. Muller has presented widely throughout the DC-Baltimore metropolitan area at venues including the Library of Congress, Newseum, Politics and Prose, American Library in Paris and local universities. He is currently working on a book about the lost history of Frederick Douglass on Maryland’s Eastern Shore.
John Muller will be in conversation
with Dr. Ida E. Jones, Morgan State University Archivist.
Writers LIVE programs are supported in part by a bequest from The Miss Howard Hubbard Adult Programming Fund.
Thursday, February 28 at 6:30pm
Central Library, African American Department
400 Cathedral Street
Baltimore, MD 21201
Thank you Frederick Historic Sites Consortium and Maryland Room of the Frederick County Public Library!
Posted by jmullerwashingtonsyndicate in Uncategorized on February 26, 2019
This past weekend I had the opportunity to present “Frederick Douglass in Western Maryland” at the Master Docent Series Workshop 2019 held in Frederick City, Maryland at the Delaplaine Arts Center.
A hundred people or so squeezed into the impressive space to hear from a series of wonderful presentations focusing on the history of Frederick County and surrounding communities.
Many in the crowd were moved by a local documentary on Frederick’s African-American community that included an interview with a sharp 105-year old woman who recalled days gone post. A local “roads scholars” presented his documentary work photographing and researching more than 30 extant historic school houses in Frederick County and a local railway scholar presented on intra-community streetcars which connected more exurban and rural communities to the market places of Frederick and Hagerstown.
Many thanks to Mary Mannix and Carolyn Magura of the Maryland Room of the Frederick County Public Library for sharing their research expertise as super librarians and kind invitation to present.
Look forward to connecting more with Frederick City in the near future.
JM
Upcoming Walking Tours of Frederick Douglass’ Old Anacostia (March 2, 9 and 17, 2019)
Posted by jmullerwashingtonsyndicate in Uncategorized on February 22, 2019
Join local reporter and historian John Muller on a walk through Old Anacostia, examining the neighborhood through the eyes of residents past and present.
Blending historic research and contemporary Ward 8 politics, our guide will lead the group on a walk through time, exploring our city’s most historic Historic District. Stories of presidents, famed one-time resident Frederick Douglass, 19th-century architecture and neighborhood folklore will be woven throughout.
Video: JHU Professor Martha S. Jones discusses “Birthright Citizens: A History of Race and Rights in Antebellum America” and Editor’s Note
Posted by jmullerwashingtonsyndicate in Uncategorized on February 21, 2019
Editor’s Note:
Johns Hopkins University Professor of History Martha S. Jones has been around the corner and across the world uplifting lost history as of late.
In her groundbreaking work, Birthright Citizens: A History of Race and Rights in Antebellum America (Cambridge University Press, 2018), Prof. Jones documents the legal declarations and assertions of citizenship made by the antebellum black community of Baltimore City in radical opposition to the Maryland state legislature supporting African colonization as a matter of long-term public policy. Colonization was supported with a capital budget.
As a street historian I have picked up old maps of Africa which show “Maryland” as a state or county of Liberia. I eventually learned in 1832 the state of Maryland funded a census of all free black folks in the state to better inform its policy efforts in the colonization of black Marylanders.
The era and epoch of Baltimore community history in which Prof. Jones chronicles is from whence Dr. Frederick (Bailey) Douglass emerges and escapes in September 1838.
I suggest scholars take the lead of Prof. Jones and get to studying and researching. There is much work to be done to correct generations of incomplete scholarship and lies.
JM
P.S. I will be referencing Prof. Jones work on Thursday, February 28, 2019 at the Central Branch of the Enoch Pratt Library in the presentation of “The Lost History of Frederick (Bailey) in Baltimore.” Morgan State University archivist Dr. Ida E. Jones will offer remarks and moderate.
Follow Prof. Jones on her blog: http://marthasjones.com/blog/
Video: UDC Forum: Charles Sumner School Museum and Archives and Director Kimberly Springle
Posted by jmullerwashingtonsyndicate in Uncategorized on February 20, 2019
David Blight honored with Lincoln Prize for his book on Frederick Douglass
Posted by jmullerwashingtonsyndicate in Uncategorized on February 20, 2019
David Blight honored with Lincoln Prize for his book on Frederick Douglass
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David Blight, the 1954 Professor of American History at Yale, was recently honored with the 2019 Gilder Lehrman Lincoln Prize from Gettysburg College and the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History for his book “Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom.”
A noted Civil War historian, Blight directs the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition at Yale. Blight’s nearly 900-page “Prophet of Freedom” tackles Frederick Douglass’s complex history and his legacy as an abolitionist. The prizewinning historian’s research for the book spanned nine years.
Blight will be recognized during an event hosted by Gettysburg College and the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History in April. The award includes a $50,000 prize and a bronze replica of Augustus Saint-Gaudens’ life-size bust “Lincoln the Man.”
Thank you Sumner School Museum and Archives for hosting “Lost History of Frederick Douglass and DC Public Schools”
Posted by jmullerwashingtonsyndicate in Uncategorized on February 19, 2019
The tradition, legacy and history of DC Public Schools is of national consequence. In the immediate years following the Civil War a citywide public school system was formalized and organized for “colored children.”
Dr. Frederick Douglass and the Douglass Family were steadfast supporters and advocates for the entirety of the school system from its teachers to its students to its administrators to its philanthropic benefactors to its supporters in the US House and US Senate.
Dr. Douglass, a former night school teacher in Baltimore, lectured to support night schools in Washington City. Charles Douglass, the youngest Douglass son, was a night school teacher in Old Barry Farm. Virginia Douglass, wife of Frederick Douglass, Jr., served as a principal in Old Anacostia.
The Douglassess supported DC Public Schools and were thusly integral in elevating DCPS in its importance both locally and nationally to the educational and social uplifting of African-Americans. The first African-American graduate of Harvard, the first four African-American women to obtain a doctorate and Carter G. Woodson are just some of those who either attended or educated within the DC Public School System. Haley George Douglass, the Harvard-educated grandson of Dr. Douglass, taught at Dunbar Senior High School for four decades.
We extend our sincerest appreciation for the work of Director Kimberly Springle of the Charles Sumner School Museum and Archives and for the opportunity to present on a topic of great personal interest.
Editor’s Note:
On the backroads of Sandy Spring are families and tribes who family lore tells of ancestors being taught be Emily Edmonson Johnson, a friend of Dr. Douglass and teacher at Miner Normal School. I attended school with the descendants of those taught by Mrs. E. Edmonson Johnson so therefore it is my obligation to uplift the fallen and lost history.
Thank you to Hagerstown, Maryland (Hub City) for embracing and uplifting the consequential lost local history of Frederick Douglass!
Posted by jmullerwashingtonsyndicate in Uncategorized on February 18, 2019
Walking tour of Hagerstown gathers on Bethel Street. John Brown in the cut.
Corner of Henry Avenue and Bethel Street in Hagerstown, Maryland. The street is named for Rev. Thomas Henry, a legendary AME pastor in the greater Hagerstown area who had connections to Frederick Douglass and the greater Anacostia and Good Hope Communities of Southeast Washington.
Jeff Cline, Washington County Commissioner, presents a proclamation recognizing the 1879 visit of Dr. Frederick Douglass to Hagerstown to an elder of Ebenezer AME Church, pastored by Rev. Marbury at 26 Bethel Street in Hagerstown, Maryland. Proceeds from Douglass’ 1879 lecture supported the church, a characteristic of hundreds of Douglass’ lectures in the last three decades of his life.
On Bethel Street a historic marker recognizes the history of Hagerstown’s AME church before and during the Civil War. The connections between the AME church in networks of Hagerstown and Baltimore and Washington are numerous.
An inquisitive young man reads from a historic marker noting John Brown’s 1859 stay at a hotel in downtown Hagerstown before launching his assault on the federal arsenal in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia.
“Local historians learn about Frederick Douglass’ visit to Hagerstown in 1879”
By Jonathan Hunter, WDVM
Feb 8, 2019
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“Taking pride in history as a legacy unfolds”
By Brandon Reynolds, WDVM
Feb 12, 2019
https://www.localdvm.com/news/maryland/taking-pride-in-history-as-a-legacy-unfolds/1777085707
— SPECIAL THANKS! —
Elizabeth Howe and John Clinton Frye of the Western Maryland Room of the Washington County Free Library – Hagerstown Branch
Manager Mary Mannix & staff of the Maryland Room of the Frederick County Library – Frederick City Branch
Reggie Turner, Washington County Commissioners; Maryland Commission on African American History and Culture
WDVM – Hagerstown
Rev. Marbury, Ebenezer AME Church of Hagerstown
Dan Spedden & Washington County Convention and Visitors Bureau
Ron Lytle, African American Historical Association of Western MD
Dr. Ed Papenfuse, retired archivist
Frederick Douglass National Historic Site
16th & W Street Douglassonians
Frederick Douglass National Historic Site Celebrates 201st Birthday — Sat., February 16 – 1:00 PM – 2:30 PM @ DC Prep Academy (1409 V Street SE)
Posted by jmullerwashingtonsyndicate in Uncategorized on February 15, 2019
Join the National Park Service on Saturday, February 16, 2019 as we end the bicentennial year of Frederick Douglass’s birth and continue our celebration of the man, his legacy and his impact to the world.
Enjoy a commemorative ceremony from 1 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. at D.C. Prep Academy (1409 V Street, SE) featuring historic African American spirituals by the Washington Revels, poetry written and read by local youth, and dramatic recitations of Douglass’s most famous speeches performed by winners of the annual Frederick Douglass National Historic Site Oratorical Contest.
Take a walking tour of the neighborhood surrounding Douglass Cedar Hill estate titled “Douglass Anacostia” and enjoy ranger led house tours on the quarter of every hour between 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. Registration required at the visitor center.
Frederick Douglass in Washington, D.C.: The Lion of Anacostia 