Frederick Douglass Statue

The Frederick Douglass statue in Morgan Park near the Upton neighbourhood commemorates Baltimore's most famous abolitionist and one of the most important Americans of the 19th century. Douglass was born into slavery in Maryland, grew up and worked in Baltimore, learned to read here (illegally), and escaped the city in 1838 — the escape that made his subsequent career as abolitionist, writer, and statesman possible.

The statue is one of several memorials to Douglass in Baltimore. The most significant site is the general area of Fell Street in Fells Point where he worked as a shipyard caulker before his escape. The city's complex relationship with its own history — slaveholding border state, home to one of America's greatest abolitionists — is a thread worth following through multiple sites.

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Frederick Douglass was born into slavery in Talbot County on Maryland's Eastern Shore in 1818, escaped from Baltimore in 1838 disguised as a sailor using borrowed identity papers, and went on to become one of the most important Americans of the 19th century. He later wrote: "I have often been utterly astonished, since I came to the north, to find persons who could speak of the singing, among slaves, as evidence of their contentment and happiness. It is impossible to conceive of a greater mistake. Slaves sing most when they are most unhappy."

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