The first woman president of the NAACP, Dr. Enolia P. McMillan, started her professional career as a teacher in Caroline County in 1927, when she taught at the Denton segregated black high school.
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Their daughter Rosetta reminded those who admired her father:
“The story of Frederick Douglass’ hopes and aspirations and longing desire for freedom … was a story made possible by the unswerving loyalty of Anna Murray.”
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Who made you free, young Alexander?
Your enslaved father?
Your freed mother?
How were you free, Alexander?
Free to sit beside the Tuckahoe,
read holy books and
toss pebbles into the water,
listen to Aunt Hester’s screams on the other side?
Free to walk away from the Tuckahoe and never return?
But you did return.
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Isaac and Betsey Bailey, Frederick Douglass’s grandparents, set up housekeeping, not in the communal quarter, but in a little cabin in a woods clearing not far from the bank of the Tuckahoe… Outside was a shallow well into which a bucket was dipped by means of a wooden beam suspended in the fork of a dead tree. There was also a nearby spring, in a wild ravine known as “Kentucky”, and a path that led down to the creek bank at a spot called “muddy shore”, the fishing ground where shad and herring were trapped in seine nets during their annual spring runs to spawn in the fresh upper reaches of the Tuckahoe.
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Douglass wrote:
“[My life] began in the family of my grandmother and grandfather, Betsey and Isaac Baily. They were quite advanced in life, and had long lived on the spot where they then resided. They were considered old settlers in the neighborhood… The dwelling of my grandmother and grandfather had few pretensions. It was a log hut, or cabin, built of clay, wood, and straw. … My grandmother–whether because too old for field service, or because she had so faithfully discharged the duties of her station in early life, I know not–enjoyed the high privilege of living in a cabin, separate from the quarter…”
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Frederick Douglass wrote:
Douglass wrote:
“Down in a little valley, not far from grandmammy’s cabin, stood Mr. Lee’s mill, where the people came often in large numbers to get their corn ground. It was a watermill; and I never shall be able to tell the many things thought and felt, while I sat on the bank and watched that mill, and the turning of that ponderous wheel. The mill-pond, too, had its charms; and with my pinhook, and thread line, I could get nibbles, if I could catch no fish.”
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Frederick Douglass wrote:
“I have had two masters. My first master’s name was Anthony. I do not remember his first name. He was generally called Captain Anthony–a title which, I presume, he acquired by sailing a craft on the Chesapeake Bay. He was not considered a rich slaveholder. He owned two or three farms, and about thirty slaves.” (Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, ch. 1)
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Frederick Douglass wrote:
“My master was the [overseer] on the home plantation of Col. Edward Lloyd; had overseers on his own farms; and gave directions to overseers on the farms belonging to Col. Lloyd. This plantation is situated on Wye river — the river receiving its name, doubtless, from Wales, where the Lloyds originated. They (the Lloyds) are an old and honored family in Maryland, exceedingly wealthy. The home plantation, where they have resided, perhaps for a century or more, is one of the largest, most fertile, and best appointed, in the state.” (My Bondage and My Freedom, ch 2)
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