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Transcription: [00:00:00]
{SPEAKER name="Shoshi Weiss"}
Alright, hey, everyone. My name is Shoshi Weiss. I am a park ranger at the Frederick Douglass National Historic Site, which is his historic home, it's here in D.C. in Anacostia, and if you have never been to visit us, I invite you to do so.
[00:00:15]
{SPEAKER name="Shoshi Weiss"}
Um, the site is free, open to the public seven days a week, and we do tours of his home every day. And we're actually celebrating his birthday, 192nd, uh, the 14th, uh, the Sunday after next, and this year our theme is Frederick Douglass' connection to Women's Rights Movement because this is the 90th anniversary of women's suffrage which was one of Frederick Douglass' major causes so if you want more information about that event we actually have little cards here for you. So we invite you to come join us on the 14th.
[00:00:46]
{SPEAKER name="Shoshi Weiss"}
And tonight, we're talking about this portrait right here, which was completed in about 1844, so Frederick Douglass would have been about 26 years old at that time. And he had escaped from slavery when he was about 20. He made his way up North. And so this period when the portrait was painted, it's that time when he's just beginning to gain his reputation as one of the most brilliant and eloquent abolitionist orators.
[00:01:09]
{SPEAKER name="Shoshi Weiss"}
And one year later, in 1845, he would publish his narrative of The Life of Frederick Douglass. And that's still recognized today as one of the most powerful autobiographies in American history. He laid bare the horrors of slavery, and he took America to task for perpetuating that institution. And if this portrait looks familiar to you, it was actually used as the basis for the frontispiece in the narrative. So that's what that illustration was based off of so the expression probably looks familiar.
[00:01:36]
{SPEAKER name="Shoshi Weiss"}
But this portrait itself is actually, it's more than just a portrait of a famous American, Frederick Douglass himself was very conscious of the power of portraiture, of its ability to communicate both good and evil, and part of that was a response to the way that African Americans were often portrayed in the visual media at that time. Often times what Americans saw of African Americans in the newspaper and that sort of thing were political cartoons, and other images that were basically exaggerated racist stereotypes. And Frederick Douglass himself said in 1849 that an African American could never have an impartial portrait at the hands of a white artist because he felt that white artists had internalized these stereotypes too much so he himself he actually preferred photographic portraits because he felt that it was harder to alter them. You'd get a much better likeness.
[00:02:28]
{SPEAKER name="Shoshi Weiss"}
And another way that Americans would often see images of African Americans in the media was abolitionist propaganda from the abolitionist movement trying to end slavery, and one image that you've probably seen before, it's that seal with the kneeling slave and it says "am I not a man and a brother?" that was basically adopted by the abolitionist movement and they put it on all their pamphlets, they put it on cups and plates, they sold it, trying to raise sentiment against slavery. And although Frederick Douglass was very involved in the abolitionist movement, that was his main cause, he did have a problem with that beseeching pose of the slave. If you take a look at this portrait, he's not beseeching anyone; he's not supplicating anyone. This is the image of a man who is taking America to task and challenging America to stand up to its democratic ideals.
[00:03:12]
{SPEAKER name="Shoshi Weiss"}
And this portrait is actually, in that way, it's very similar to another famous abolitionist image which you might have seen of Cinque from the Amistad. There was actually a movie made about the Amistad in the nineties. So that was, um, a group of west Africans who were kidnapped by a Spanish slaveship, and they took over the ship. They were able to control the ship but then the U.S. Navy intervened and brought them to Connecticut and they were actually put on trial. And the leader of that group, his name was Cinque. An abolitionist named Robert Purvis commissioned a portrait of him. And this portrait of Cinque, he's wearing a toga, like a classical garment, and he's holding a staff, and he has the same sort of gaze, gazing off into the distance, and it caused a huge stir. Frederick Douglass actually has an image of Cinque hanging in his home.
[00:03:59]
{SPEAKER name="Shoshi Weiss"}
But one editorial about that image said that it would strike fear into the hearts of any slaveholder. So you can get a sense that a portrait like this might have been profoundly unsettling to a white American at that time. They were not used to seeing African Americans portrayed in this way. And Frederick Douglass actually articulated how he felt about portraiture here in D.C. in a speech in 1873. Because it wasn't just his image that he was concerned with; he felt that images of inspiring people have the power to help you to remember what you're doing with your life. If you come to visit us at the historic site, you'll see that the walls of his home are covered in portraits of other activists, President Lincoln, all sorts of people that he admired, and you'll see their images all over the home.
[00:04:45}
{SPEAKER name="Shoshi Weiss"}
So the speech that he gave, it was actually because the Sumner School here in D.C., it was named after the abolitionist Charles Sumner and it was opened as a school for African American children. And the school board has originally set aside $500 to purchase the portrait of Charles Sumner the abolitionist, and then a later school board went back and revoked that decision. And this caused a furor, and a meeting of 300 people convened on the issue, Frederick Douglass was there, and he was asked to speak; and he stood up and he told the audience that this portrait of Sumner wouldn't just be a pretty picture on the wall. He said that it would have the power to inspire these students and that it was important that the community remember that, and that they put up this picture because he said that it could be said that a picture is a very small thing, but that that would be a great mistake. He said that the portrait of Sumner would stand for all the grand and all commanding ideas that have given shape to our national identity,
[00:05:40]
{SPEAKER name="Shoshi Weiss"}
and I would say that you could say the same thing about this portrait of Frederick Douglass that we have hanging here. And it is quite fitting that we do have a portrait of Frederick Douglass hanging here in the national portrait gallery because his image here can continue to inspire and challenge us to live up to his vision of a more equal and inclusive America. And so that's my little speech, but if you have any questions, any discussion, that's what we're here for.
[00:06:05]
{SPEAKER name=unidentified name}
How about the painter?
[00:06:06]
{SPEAKER name="Shoshi Weiss"}
The painter? It's an unidentified artist. I looked, I couldn't (stutters)I mean, I don't know if you know more about it but I don't know. I don't know.
[00:06:13]
{SPEAKER name=unidentified speaker}
We don't know, yeah.
[00:06:16]
{SPEAKER name="Shoshi Weiss"}
Yeah, but I am assuming that Frederick Douglass would have approved this particular image because it has the expression that he was always going for in his portraits. He got mad whenever he was depicted having to amiable or kindly of an expression, because his goal, he said it himself was to agitate, was to help people think about what they were doing and to challenge what was going on, so he didn't want to be looking to friendly in his pictures. He wanted to be looking challenging and determined.
[00:06:40]
{SPEAKER name=unidentified speaker}
Where did it hang before?
[00:06:42]
{SPEAKER name="Shoshi Weiss"}
This particular picture?
[00:06:43]
{SPEAKER name=unidentified speaker}
Yeah, where did it come from--

Transcription Notes:
---------- Reopened for Editing 2023-04-18 22:07:14 ---------- Reopened for Editing 2023-04-18 21:57:33