A Field Trip to Anacostia

I think today was my first ever trip to Anacostia.  It's only because I've never had a reason to go before.  I found out about the Frederick Douglass home from Brigham's blog on a trip he took with Jeff a few years ago.  I'm disappointed that it's not better advertised because it's an amazing site dedicated to a true hero.

I'm sad to say that I did not know very much about him before today.  I knew that he was once a slave and that he was a famous orator.  I did not know about his work with the women's suffrage movement or that his second wife was white.  That latter fact may not sound like a big deal but he really lived a life of color-blindness and there was a difference between believing in abolition and racial equality.

Frederick Douglass moved here with his family when he served as marshall of DC.  This home was previously built by a man who created a deed insisting that it never be sold to the Irish or the African-Americans.  He went into debt, the bank took it and sold it to Douglass not caring about any previous deeds.  The house cost over a million dollars in today's money.  It's a gorgeous home on a hill with a view of the Washington Monument in the distance.

Most of the possessions in the home were owned by Frederick Douglass.

This painting could only been seen with the aid of the mirror.  He was the most photographed man of the 19th century.

His trunks still reside upstairs.  He traveled the world and even climbed the pyramids.  I think of his life beginning in slavery and ending with the world literally at his feet.  I wish there were more of his ilk in the world today or maybe they aren't very well advertised.  I wish someone like him were the most photographed of our age.