VIDEO: Raising of American flag at Frederick Douglass National Historic Site

February 2021 Lost History Black History Month virtual presentations (listings)

LOST HISTORY Associates 

2021 Black History Month Virtual Presentations

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Lost History: Frederick Douglass and Shakespeare

Saturday, February 8, 2020 / 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM 

https://tinyurl.com/FBDShakespeare

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Lost History: Frederick Douglass, Howard University and Higher Education

Wednesday, February 10, 2021 / 7:00 PM – 9:00 PM 

https://tinyurl.com/FBDHowardUniv

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Frederick Douglass and the Underground Railroad

Sunday, February 14, 2021 / 4:00 PM – 6:00 PM 

https://tinyurl.com/FBDUGRR

In partnership w/ Washington, D.C. History & Culture 

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Frederick Douglass & American Lynch Law 

Wednesday, February 17, 2021 / 7:00 PM – 9:00 PM 

https://tinyurl.com/FBDLynchLaw

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Lost History of Frederick (Bailey) Douglass and the Methodist Church 

Wednesday, February 24, 2021 / 7:00 PM – 9:00 PM 

https://tinyurl.com/FBDMethodism

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“Black Abolitionist Tour of London” – Livestream History Program (Sun, February 21, 2021 @ 10 AM EST)

Sign-up for the free program w/ Washington, D.C. History & Culture **HERE** !

Brief note on Frederick (Bailey) Douglass & the Enoch Pratt Free Library; FBD knew Dr. Lewis Henry Steiner, founding Librarian of Enoch Pratt Free Library

As an adolescent Frederick Bailey ear hustled rudimentary academic instruction from the doorways at Wye House on the Eastern Shore to the alleyways of Fell’s Point in Baltimore City. As an adult he served on the boards of colleges and universities.

Having never attended a formal day of school in his life Dr. Douglass was regarded and respected by the most learned men and women of his era from college presidents to national legislators on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean before he was yet 30 years old.

Throughout his life Dr. Douglass aligned himself with radical Black Americans and radical European Americans who advocated for equal education, to use modern parlance. Anyone who openly supported and/or anyone who sought to aid in the education of Black Americans could count Dr. Douglass as an ally.

Part of the inspirational and aspirational story of the life of Dr. Douglass is his personal commitment to radical education across time and geography and institutions from Sunday schools to primary schools to the university to the modern American library.

Lost in the diabolical scandalmongering peddled by mythomanes is the street history of Dr. Douglass, a man of infinite real-world associations, connections and relationships. How the history and life work of Dr. Douglass connects to today has yet to be told more than a century after his passing due negligence, incompetence and state-sanctioned ignorance.

Dr. Douglass knew them all and they all knew Dr. Douglass.

In April 1879, in Frederick City, Maryland, United States Marshal Frederick (Bailey) Douglass lectured to benefit Quinn Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church on 3rd Street, where several of his close friends had previously pastored. Speaking within today’s Brewer’s Alley, Douglass shared the stage with local pastors as well as local educators.

Specifically, Marshal Douglass shared the stage in Frederick with Dr. Lewis Henry Steiner, a local to the area and advocate for equal education.

Upon its opening in 1886 Dr. Steiner was the lead librarian of the Enoch Pratt Free Library. Dr. Steiner, as well as other leadership and administrative staff of Enoch Pratt, knew Dr. Douglass.

Before the central branch re-opened and before the public health crisis I was applying pressure to the administration of Enoch Pratt Free Library to see how much they knew, or rather did not know, about the connections of Frederick (Bailey) Douglass to the library.

My correspondence with staff of the Enoch Pratt Free Library are all a matter of public record, as are the extant records of the library. I received a personal call after 8:00 PM one evening from a staff member thanking me for the continued pressure I was applying to the library leadership yet sharing that while the archival records I was seeking should exist they weren’t sure if they had them or where they may be. And that is how it be and why the history has been so utterly lost and mythologized by sustained public ignorance.

Frederick (Bailey) Douglass knew the founding leadership of the Enoch Pratt Free Library. He was active in supporting institutions in his native Baltimore until his passing. Upon its opening the Enoch Pratt Free Library was open to all. Dr. Douglass knew this and he knew those who made it so.

Do you think Frederick (Bailey) Douglass supported the Enoch Pratt Free Library? Of course he did.

Organizations within Frederick, the state and region who can aid in educating the public include Elizabeth Shatto with the Heart of the Civil War Heritage Area, John Fieseler with Visit Frederick, Drew Gruber with Civil War Trails, Frederick County Public Library, leadership of AARCH and others.

Thank you to Washington, D.C. History & Culture’s Robert Kelleman for continued support

Robert Kelleman, with hat, on lower Martin Luther King, Jr. Avenue in SE Washington. Speaking is Ward 8 Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner Robin McKinney.

This past Saturday, January 16, 2021 Lost History Associates partnered with Robert Kelleman’s juggernaut community group Washington, D.C. History and Culture to present “Frederick Douglass and the Underground Railroad“. 

More than 700 participants joined the virtual presentation precipitating an encore presentation on the same subject matter for February 14, 2021.

We wanted to give a special thanks to our friend Robert for the continued collaboration and partnership. Look forward to seeing you soon whether online or in-person. 

VIDEO: “Preserving history of Frederick Douglass homes in Fells Point” (WBAL-TV; Baltimore, August 2020)

Register -> “Frederick Douglass and the UGRR (Underground Railroad) – Livestream Tour” – Sunday, February 14, 2021 @ 4:00 PM (*added due to popular demand*)

Join us for an online/virtual tour of Frederick (Bailey) Douglass heritage sites in Maryland and Washington, D.C., as well a discussion on how Frederick successfully escaped from Baltimore City in 1838 and succeeded to be an active conductor on the Underground Railroad at his home in Rochester, New York en route to Canada until the eve of the Civil War. Learn about his connections to John Brown!

Our program will focus on Frederick Douglass’ inspirational life and feature many of the sites within the Washington, D.C. and Baltimore metropolitan area associated with his life. We’ll include an overview of the Eastern Shore, Baltimore City, Old Anacostia, as well as Harper’s Ferry in West Virginia.

Your hosts for this program are John Muller, co-founder of Lost History USA (www.losthistoryUSA.com) and author of Frederick Douglass in Washington, D.C.: The Lion of Anacostia, and Justin McNeil, co-founder of Lost History USA.

The program is being offered in partnership with Robert Kelleman, founder/director of the non-profit community organization Washington, DC History & Culture. Robert has led many in-person tours of Underground Railroad sites in Maryland and Washington, DC.

*** REGISTER HERE ***

Thank you to WBAL for interviewing Lost History Associates John Muller & Justin McNeil in Fell’s Point for forthcoming feature on the Lost History of Frederick (Bailey) Douglass

Thank you to reporter Lisa Robinson and cameraman Steve Adams of WBAL (NBC) for taking time Thursday, January 14, 2021 to walk and talk with John Muller and Justin McNeil of Lost History Associates in Fell’s Point about the lost history of Frederick (Bailey) Douglass in Baltimore.

Check your local listings for a forthcoming feature(s) and/or circle back to this blog upon the first of February 2021 for more information. 

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Justin McNeil, co-founder of Lost History Associates, speaks with WBAL in Fell’s Point, Baltimore.

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John Muller, co-founder of Lost History Associates, speaks with WBAL in Fell’s Point, Baltimore.

A note on calls to Kendra Parzen of National Historic Trust & Ryan Doherty of NPS Chesapeake Bay Gateway

On Monday, January 4, 2021 I placed calls to Kendra Parzen of the National Historic Trust and Jonathan Doherty of the National Park Service’s Chesapeake Bay Gateway Network in response to a December 2020 article in the Bay Journal, “African American History Focus of Bay Mapping Effort.”

In equally fifteen to twenty minute phone conversations I shared with both Parzen and Doherty my background as the author of Frederick Douglass in Washington, D.C.: The Lion of Anacostia (The History Press, 2012), as well as my working relationship with the National Park Service’s Frederick Douglass National Historic Site for a decade or thereabouts, as well as my current consultation on a community survey of the National Park Service’s Carter G. Woodson Home National Historic Site in Washington City’s Shaw neighborhood, as well as my recent appearance on WYPR (88.1 FM, Baltimore City), as well as my various popular historic / heritage walking tours throughout the DC-Baltimore–Annapolis–Eastern Shore–Western Maryland and Harpers Ferry areas, as well as the fact that before I presented (and/or co-presented) on the lost history of Frederick Douglass in Cambridge, Maryland (September 2018 @ the Harriet Tubman Museum and Education Center), Frederick Douglass in Denton, Maryland (February 2019 @ Caroline County Public Library in Denton), Frederick Douglass in Hagerstown, Maryland (February 2019 @ Washington County Public Library in Hagerstown & Ebenezer AME Church), Frederick Douglass in Frostburg / Allegany County (April 2019 @ Frostburg State University), Rev. Henry A. Monroe, Godson of Frederick Douglass (September 2019 @ Dorchester County Historical Society), Frederick Douglass in Salisbury, Maryland (September 2019 @ Chipman Cultural Center), Frederick Douglass in Centreville, Maryland (October 2019 @ Queen Anne’s County Public Library) and the upcoming Frederick Douglass in Cecil County (February 2021 @ Cecil County Public Library) the institutional knowledge of Douglass and his networks within these geographically diverse regions and communities of the Chesapeake in antebellum, Civil War and Reconstruction is/was nearly entirely unknown, undocumented, unrecognized, unstudied and ignored by local, regional and national institutions. 

I also shared with both Kendra Parzen and Jonathan Doherty that the Star Democrat, the daily paper of record for Maryland’s Mid Shore, quoted me in late October 2020 while attending a community meeting at the Frederick Douglass Park on the Tuckahoe in Talbot County.

Local scholar John Muller, who has written books about Frederick Douglass including The Lion of Anacostia, said more of Frederick Douglass’ personal history should be told, not a “nursery rhyme history.”

“A complete story cannot be told when the complete story is not known,” he said. “There are not efforts to reach out to subject matter experts who have the expertise and knowledge of Douglass here on the Eastern Shore.”

Muller said there should be a direct connection from the park to Cedar Hill, Douglass’ estate in Anacostia in his later years. In the panels, the park notes other historical sites, including Cedar Hill, and connects them on the map.

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Neither Parzen nor Dougherty was familiar with my extensive presentations, walking tours, interviews and published material. It is their jobs to know my groundbreaking work. The existence and purpose of this “mapping effort” is to know my work. 

More specifically, I asked Dougherty if he was familiar with the 2019 book on James Collins Johnson, a friend to Frederick Bailey Douglass. He was neither familiar with the book, my book review in Library Journal nor locations on the Eastern Shore that are associated, connected and affiliated with Johnson. 

The reason for my contacting Parzen and Dougherty was to take the initiative to introduce myself and my work that aligns with the effort to document the collective history of American Descendant communities throughout the Chesapeake Bay watershed and environs from the Lower Eastern Shore to the Appalachian communities along the northern branch of the Potomac. 

I shared with Parzen and Dougherty I will be reaching out to a collection of officials within the National Park Service, Maryland Office of Planning / Maryland Historical Trust, elected officials in Annapolis and members of the US Senate and US Congress that have geographic jurisdiction over this ambitious effort and undertaking as a member of the public, a subject matter expert and a regional reporter to offer the services of Lost History Associates, co-founded by myself and Mr. Justin McNeil, in this process as members of the “board of historical advisers.”

We look forward to the immediately forthcoming opportunity to contribute and collaborate in this important public history community process. If Parzen, Doherty and the board of historical advisers, largely composed of political appointees and registered lobbyists, do not know my work they are not qualified to be involved in this process, which is supported by the public treasury. If they do not know my work they should immediately start studying or they should resign from this effort immediately. 

I will be following this effort closely and documenting my efforts on this blog.

 

Register -> “Frederick Douglass and the UGRR (Underground Railroad) – Livestream Tour” – Saturday, January 16, 2021 @ 10AM

Join us for an online/virtual tour of the Frederick Douglass heritage sites in Maryland and Washington, D.C., as well a discussion on how how Frederick successfully escaped from then was an active conductor on the Underground Railroad in New York state until the eve of the Civil War. Learn about his connections to John Brown!

Our program will focus on Frederick Douglass’ inspirational life and feature many of the sites within the Washington, D.C. and Baltimore metropolitan area associated with his life. We’ll include an overview of the Eastern Shore, Baltimore City, Old Anacostia, as well as Harper’s Ferry in West Virginia.

Your hosts for this program are John Muller, co-founder of Lost History USA (www.losthistoryUSA.com) and author of Frederick Douglass in Washington, D.C.: The Lion of Anacostia, and Justin McNeil, co-founder of Lost History USA.

The program is being offered in partnership with Robert Kelleman, founder/director of the non-profit community organization Washington, DC History & Culture. Robert has led many in-person tours of Underground Railroad sites in Maryland and Washington, DC.

*** REGISTER HERE ***