Orator, author and anti-slavery activist Frederick Douglass is arguably one of the most prominent African Americans from nineteenth-century Maryland. Born a slave in Talbot County, Maryland, Douglass experienced enslaved life as a house servant in Baltimore and the intolerable suffering of a plantation field hand. After he managed to escape North across the Mason-Dixon line to freedom at the age of 20, Douglass began a career as an abolitionist speaker and women’s suffrage advocate aided by the Anti-Slavery Society throughout New England, the Midwest and in England. He nonetheless remained a fugitive from his owners in Maryland.
Civil War scholar and Washington Times Civil War page correspondent, William S. Connery, will address the complex relationship abolitionist Douglass had with his home state in a presentation entitled, Frederick Douglass and Maryland at 7:00 p.m. on Wednesday, August 24th, at the William Paca House, 186 Prince George Street, about 2 blocks from the State House in downtown Annapolis. Mr. Connery’s lecture highlights the contrasts Douglass experienced both the cruel beatings at the hands of his plantation overseer and, later, Douglass’ expression of fondness for Maryland following Emancipation in 1864: Maryland is now a glorious free state . . . the revolution is genuine, full and complete. Historic Annapolis Foundation is hosting Mr. Connery’s presentation, which is free to the general public. Seating is limited. To make reservations, call at 410-267-8146.