Good afternoon everyone. My name is jerry mcclory. Thank you for coming out on this bluthsery washington, d. C. Day. On behalf of the public library, i would like to thank you for coming out today. The peabody room was named after eorge peabody. He was a merchant, finance year and philanthropist who got his start in business in georgetown in 1812. He was 17 years old. He came from massachusetts with his uncle and they opened a dry goods store on m street. Despite his third grade education, he was a financial genius. He moved on to baltimore where the action was in the early 19th century. He was there for 20 years. You have probably heard of the peabody conservatory of music. That was his namesake. Became a multimillionaire. He eventually moved to london and lived there for the remainder of his life. In his will of 1867, he gave his millions away to establish educational organizations. This was a generation before Andrew Carnegie did the same thing with his money. To the community of georgetown he left 15,000 to establish a library. This room was named in honor of him and serves as a repository for georgetown neighborhood history. Founded a full 49 years before the Nations Capital was founded in 1800. Todays speaker is jamie stiehm. We welcome her back. This is her second talk in 2016. The second saturday of each month she is giving a talk about individual american personages who really impacted american history. Jamie is a syndicated columnist and contributor to u. S. News. Com. Today, she is going to give a talk about Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman. How douglass worked by day and how tubman worked by night under the stars. Her talk next month will be about rachel carson. That will be held on saturday, march 12. Pick up a flyer on your way out. I also have nice jumbo postcards that lists her entire speaking schedule. Everyone must have these two pieces of paper before they leave today. Thank you so much for coming. And i turn the podium over to jamie. Thank you. Ms. Stiehm thank you for hosting us in this amazing space. If we could put ourselves to the Eastern Shore of maryland, there Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass, two most known africanamericans of the civil war era were born into slavery at about the same time. They did not know their birthdays. Their birth places about 20 miles apart. Perhaps because of hit its status, virulence slaveowning past is often forgotten today. As the lives and physical scars of these two figures of test, slavery in maryland was as oppressive as the cotton fields of the deep south. White owned farmland was worked by thousands of enslaved people who also worked on the water to bring back the catch of the chesapeake day. In no part of this date was slavery as brutal as the Eastern Shore. Conditions exposed by the oddly parallel lives of these two famous maryland residents. On his autobiographies first page, Frederick Douglass talked about the harsh land of talbot county. His boyhood. He said it was marked by the desert like appearance of its soil and the general dilapidation of the farms. The talk tank river was among the laziest and muddy us of streams. Surrounded by a white population of the lowest order. Indolence and drunk into a proverb. He had a way with words. 20 miles away tubmans family lived in still deeper isolation near cambridge. In a hardscrabble part of the world, with very few fine indoor things. She had the chance to live with er closest family. Frederick douglass was separated from his mother and grandmother as a child. That was a cut that never healed. He also never knew who his father was. Is father was white. At the same time, Frederick Douglass was a very bright boy who learned to read at a young age because of a kind mistress and his playmate who was the lord and master of the wealthy home. The two of them were very close. Frederick douglas hitchhiked on tommys privileged schooling. He got a lucky break in other words as a young slave and that is something that Harriet Tubman never got carried she never had any exceptional privilege. Like most people born into slavery, she remains illiterate her whole life. She signed her name with the x. Fortunately for both, the states Large Population of free blacks and the presence of sympathetic antislavery quakers on the Eastern Shore made it easier to escape to freedom. Delaware, the neighboring state was a slave state also. The goal was to get to the masondixon line between maryland and pennsylvania. That was the border between slavery and freedom. Frederick douglass and tubman fled from bondage as young adults. E in 1838 and she in 1849. She walked and he took the train. Tubman soon became a legendary conductor on the underground railroad and was the first woman to later execute an armed expedition in the civil war. As her biographer Kate Clifford larson put it, she worked by night in secret, silent cells navigating by the north star in the light of the moon. During the 1850s, she led 13 groups of slaves to freedom. She returned to the egypt of the Eastern Shore time and again exposing the risk of capture. On the africanamerican underground network, she was known as moses. The spiritual leader of her people. Let my people go. He sang in her huskey haunting voice often in code. She let it be known that she carried a pistol inspiring fear in the hearts of slave catchers. Who never caught up with her although she was the most wanted fugitive. They did not even know what she looked like because she traveled in disguise. She let it be known that she would use her pistol on anyone who wanted to turn back. No one in her groups was allowed o turn back because that would be tantamount to certain betrayal of the party. She was a very tough and esilient and incredibly gifted in navigating land by night. If you can imagine the swamps and the fields and the forests. That took a lot of daring. And to not only do it once, but twice, and four times. Frederick douglass became a Freedom Fighter in a different sense. He was a brilliant voice on the page, in person, for slave emancipation. Strikingly handsome and charismatic, he made his debut as a speaker on nantucket sland. He became a sensation almost overnight. In a way, he took the path opposite of tubman speaking in the sunshine of the 19th century public square. It was very much the age of the spoken word here in washington. Daniel webster. All of the country, people would go to hear people speak. It was a civic recreation. That is why there are so many great speakers in the 1840s and 1850s. Their lives continued to run parallel. In 1859, Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman were both asked by john brown to take part in his raid on the federal arsenal in harpers ferry. Brown regretted not having tubman fighting on his side he said later. Not for nothing did he call her general tubman. For john brown to call you general tubman that is saying something. Frederick douglass and Harriet Tubman knew that the raid would fail. They both refused to take part in it although they were both confidantes of john brown. Hey both liked and respected john brown enormously. Frederick douglass was close to the secret six who provided funds to brown. They came from boston. Most likely samuel how was one of them. By refusing his in treaties, they both saved their own lives. Incidentally, the colonel who put down the raid and captured john brown played a pivotal part in the civil war. It was robert e lee, colonel robert e. Lee who was a army officer who went to west point. That was his last deed for the union. When he defected to the south, the confederacy, that did not sit well with his fellow Army Officers who went to west point with him. And lincoln was also furious that lee should not report to uty for the union. All of these characters wedded together and have different intersections. I thought that might be interesting to know that robert e. Lee was at the scene of harpers ferry. That was the last match in the powder keg of the civil war. Although it failed, it succeeded in alarming the south and it brought the two sides, to blows. In a way, john brown succeeded with his revolutionary raid. Harriet tubman and Frederick Douglass were not revolutionaries in the same way. They were nonviolent revolutionaries. By this time, the two new each other with mutual friends like William Lloyd garrison, the bostonian abolitionist and the philadelphia quaker and womens rights leader Lucretia Motts who we discussed last time. Harriet tubman once brought a group of 13 runaway slaves to the Frederick Douglass home in rochester, new york were he put them up in his farm over they got a way to canada. He was extremely nervous about having these runaway slaves because he thought the slave catchers were hot on their heels. If they were captured, he would be arrested as well. Anytime you have sheltered or given aid to runaway slaves, you could be arrested or taken as well. That was another match on the powder keg of the war was the slave act. Both Frederick Douglass and tubman were very much on the front lines leading up to the civil war. Harriet tubman also state as a guest at Frederick Douglass is house in the runup to the civil war, possibly to discuss john browns daring plan. Strangely, even their chesapeake connection and their mutual regard, Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass never seemed hat close in public. Both continued to play important roles after the war began. In 1861, advocating for blacks to serve as soldiers, for strategic reasons as well as political reasons. Frederick douglas visited president lincoln and had a Frank Exchange with the president on enlisting africanamerican soldiers and paying them equal wages. Lincoln took his advice on one point but not the other. Harriet tubman likewise urged legions of young men to enlist as colored volunteers using the force of her persuasion and influence. But, she also found herself seeing military action as a union spy. And scout. Across enemy lines in South Carolina, the heart of the confederacy. The story of her life was crossing enemy lines. She was an outstanding spy for that reason. The plain broad shouldered woman was small but reportedly as strong as any man. When she was not working as a py, she was also an army nurse and laundress. She later collected a military pension. Tubmans most impressive mission as to guide James Montgomery and about 300 black troops as they raided plantations, seized harvests and livestock and destroyed and burned a bridge along South Carolinas river in june of 1863. The civil war had gained new meaning by that time with the emancipation proclamation of anuary 1 of that year. Along the way of their raid, montgomery and tubman invited and urged hundreds of slaves in South Carolina to climb aboard their Union Steamboat for freedom. Tubman raised her voice, she sang, she cut the air as she urged the escaping slaves to join them. That is proof that she was no slouch as a public figure, a charismatic speaker or presence herself. The Wisconsin State Journal reporter on the scene praised her singular patriotism, tenacity, and energy with a contemporary account. In the end, tubmans Critical Role in the civil war era events cannot be traced as clearly as that of Frederick Douglass. Eloquent douglass. In recent years, some grumbling has surfaced on the Eastern Shore and beyond because people say with some justice that Frederick Douglass, the native son, gets all of the glory leaving tubmans character in he shadow. Much as he did in life. Frederick douglass said it best in an 1868 letter dear harriet, 1868, 3 years after the civil war ended he commented on her nocturnal journeys. Harriet, the difference between us is very marked. Most of what i have done and suffered in the service of our cause has been in public. I have worked in the day. You, in the night. I have had the applause of the crowd. While the most that you have done has been witnessed right a few, trembling, scarred and footsore bonded men and women. The midnight sky and the silent stars have been the witnesses of your devotion to freedom and of your heroism. Yet, Frederick Douglass himself did not give tubman light of day in his luminous autobiography. Ironically, her name is missing from these pages as his magisterial life story. The few words that he left in that letter i read, go a long way in telling her tale. These were the few words i had to say. I would also like to read you some passages from Frederick Douglasss autobiography and i can take questions after that on their lives and their times. They both lived to great old age and were celebrated by the nation. They both lived in upstate new york, interestingly. Upstate new york was a haven for reethinking, for progress. Frederick douglas did and his days here in washington. I will tell you about that in a moment. Our friend sara jenkins has been to visit Frederick Douglasss home so maybe you could say a ew words about that later. Frederick douglas described the great house of the plantation that he lived on as a boy in very, almost as a rembrandt painter. The swans. The carriages and the stables. The fruits of the garden. The tender asparagus. He had a gift of capturing the memory, a vanished way of life. An extremely privileged slave plantation life. I was able to visit the plantation where Frederick Douglass was born. The same family is living there. The 11th generation of the lloyd family. There were some stories that mrs. Lloyd who is 87, she took me into her parlor and told me a few stories that they had kept handing down through the ages bout Frederick Douglass. He is very descriptive, not only with what was on the table but the sociology of the plantation. The aristocracy he said of the house servants. He was one of them or he was mostly in the great house. And how, working in the fields, as such an incredibly trying and brutal when he got older, he found out what it was like to be under the lash of an overseer. He was a strong and dispirited slave. He was sent to a slave breaker to break his spirit. Fortunately, he did not succeed. Here is a graceful swan, the blackness dues, quail, pheasants and choice waterfowl. All of the strange varieties were caught in the net. Mutton and venison. You get the idea. He summed it up by saying and immense wealth and lavishexpense built the great house. With all that could please the ye or tempt the taste. A vivid memory from his early childhood. He did get another lucky break. E was sent to baltimore. He was still a slave but he got to do wage work on the docks of southpointe. As a waterfront worker, all he had to do to observe his slave status was give his master most of his wages at the end of the week. He had more freedom day to day as a young man. He belonged to the east baltimore mental improvement society. Hat was an Informal Network of young, black male workers who read newspapers, traded news and thoughts and ideas. It was kind of like a survival trategy. In his early 20s, he was plotting his escape and because he was in baltimore, it was easier than walking across the vast frontier of the chesapeake bay. Ow did he make his escape . He borrowed a sailors outfit including the hat. E dressed as a sailor. He said because he worked on the waterfront as a cocker. Do you know what that is . A cocker puts cork and rubber on ships to make them more buoyant, ore seaworthy. That was a skill that he was able to take any where he ent. And where he went was, he took the train from baltimore up to philadelphia. Not as easy as taking amtrak. The susquehanna river, there was a ferry boat. Many more stops along the way. He was acutely conscious that any if anyone saw him and recognized him and betrayed him, he would be arrested and robably sent back to the country, to the land, or even shipped down south. He writes in here a critical moment in the drama of my whole future depended upon the decision of this conductor. When he came to check his papers. All blacks had to have free papers which he did not have the he had his sailors document and he traded on the goodwill that people had towards sailors and the conductor let him go. Taking his word for the fact hat he was a sailor. That voyage to philadelphia and then further north to new york nd then up to new bedford, massachusetts, that capped his slave narrative. He says to the reader thus ends my experience as a slave. Other chapters will tell the story of my life as a free man. 1838. A free man. A free young man. 1830s and 1840s were a very rough, mean, nasty decade where there is a lot of mob violence. He was told not to stay in new york. Because someone will give you up. Go further north to massachusetts. In new bedford, on the water, he could take his skill. He could make a living. All of a sudden, he was a free man and he was safer from the south than he would have been if he had stayed in new york. Gradually, his prominence grows as his reputation as a speaker makes the newspapers. He became like the Main Attraction on the Abolitionist Network because he was an orator. He had a gift for oratory as well. Capturing and humanizing the plight of the slaves. A testament to his own xperience. He was the first one to address northern audiences with that power. The power of his personal story which he told so well. He kept becoming more and more soughtafter as a speaker. He went to ireland. He went to london. Scotland. He met the great politicians of the day there like daniel oconnor. He even met Thomas Clarkson who was the founder of the Abolitionist Movement in the united kingdom. Clarkson was a journalist who got a hold of, he observed what happened on slave ships and he documented them. In a way, Frederick Douglass documented in the spoken word what clarkson had told about in the united kingdom. When clarkson finally met him, he said bless you Frederick Douglass. If i had another 60 years to live i would continue to devote myself to that cause, our cause. He was a young man compared to clarkson, the old grand man of the movement. Oving on to the civil war, Frederick Douglass was by now a newspaper publisher in rochester, new york. He was very much involved in the nations business. E was the first visitor to Abraham Lincoln in 1863. He urged the president to have black soldiers enlisted in the union army. He had three sons. They all enlisted in the union army. He said when he met lincoln for the first time, the president said i know who you are mr. Douglass. Mr. Stewart has told me all about you. I am glad to see you. Please sit down. With those very simple words of welcome, they got right to the subject at hand. Frederick douglas recorded that he was never so quickly or completely put at ease by a great man as he was by Abraham Lincoln. The two established a camaraderie. They have a substantive discussion. As it turned out, black soldiers were very important to the rest f the civil war. The massachusetts regiment was commanded by robert gold shaw. There is a frieze of them in the National Gallery of art. They were very heroic. They served incredibly well. They were near Lucretia Motts house. Even though she was a quaker pacifist, she made it her business to bring over knitted items to the soldiers. It was very good for morale and cohesionand to expand the meaning of citizenship that president lincoln said yes, let us have colored soldiers fighting for the union. Despite their very cordial exchange, in the second inaugural address, that was in march of 1865. Lincoln had just given a magnificent, spiritual, healing address. Frederick douglass was the first person to socially knock on the door of the white house and say i am an invited guest, may i come in. E was actually thrown the guards threw him out and said you do not belong here. He said yes, i do. Tell president lincoln that Frederick Douglass is here. He did not take no for an answer. And then lincoln went over to him and personally took him by the arm and said come here douglass. What did you think of my speech . He said, mr. President , you do not need to know my opinion of your sacred effort. And he said oh yes, douglass, there is no other opinion i would rather have than yours. Why was that scene not in Steven Spielbergs movie . Why . That was a terrible omission in y opinion. The two of them connected on many levels. They seemed to have a friendly understanding, a mutual understanding. And yet, after lincoln was assassinated in 1876, there is a colored memorial, not far from the capital. There was a throng of people which had gathered on the fourth of july, 1876. And Frederick Douglass, by now he is a senior statesman and an ambassador to haiti. He was many things. A recorder of deeds in the district of columbia. Here he stands and he gives his assessment of lincoln which is not altogether flowery or rosy. And he said, he was preeminently the white mans president. He was ready to protect slavery in his early years. He said we are like stepchildren, not his children. And i think this is important for us to note here today because he also sympathized with lincoln. He said he was failed by abolitionists and by slaveowners. E was touching anger from both sides like no other president we know. He said at the end of the day, our faith in him did not fail because mr. Lincoln hated slavery. He loathed slavery. We know that to be true. As a young man, lincoln witnessed a bondage on the Mississippi River in new orleans and he personally hated the peculiar institution. When he got off the train to become president in 1861, his goal was not to free the slaves. His goal was to keep the union ogether. It was real estate. It was just whatever i have to do i will do to keep the union together. In a year and a half, there was a revolution going on inside lincoln himself. He was transformed. He was transformed by the civil war. In the fire, in the crucible of the civil war, lincoln moved his position to making it about freedom. Frederick douglas had a lot to o with that. He was the most respected confidant that lincoln had, that could tell him what is happening on the free black network. He freed four million slaves with a stroke of a pen. Frederick douglas was in that struggle from 1838 all the way until 1863 and then some. E was also involved in other rights movements. He was at seneca falls. In 1848. What happened there . The first womens rights convention. Thank you. Lucretia mott was the main speaker. Elizabeth cady stanton had drafted a declaration of sentiment. Frederick douglass was one of 400 people who came to this little town in upstate new york in july and he urged participants to include suffrage on the list of declarations. And they did. If he had not been there, it might not have happened. It makes it ironic to look forward to 1865 when the pivotal settlement of the civil war did not include womens suffrage. So many they were like one and the same, the two movements. At least in the minds of some and the chorus of the hour was this is the negroes hour. Ladies, step aside and wait your turn. That was a long wait from 1865 until 1920 when women finally on the vote. That is a very important episode in our progressive history that i am disappointed with Frederick Douglas for falling down on the job. I think he could have made a difference the other way also if he had supported womens suffrage. He was not perfect. We know that lincoln was not perfect. They were tremendously determined spirits. They put their own lives at risk. Lincolns life was obviously at risk. He was the ultimate casualty of the civil war. Frederick douglas led a very storied life and up until the 1890s, when he had a house in highland beach, a beautiful resort near annapolis. You can go see the house that he had. He was fond of saying that i can stand here on my porch a free man and look across the water to where i was born into slavery. He was always reminding people, reminding himself of his long journey. He he last day of his life, is vindicated, because the last came home tofe, he theater hill in anacostia, and he had just been to a womens rights meeting with susan b. Anthony. So that was the last day of his life, and can you think of a better end for a great man . So the struggle never really ended. Harriet tubman also lived to be very old and celebrated. She lived in auburn, new york, auburn, and the secretary of state actually gave her or rented a house to her. She lived in a very nice house that steward wanted to make sure that she had a comfortable old age for all her Great Service to had aged and she people, the colored and aged. She lived to 1912, beautiful snow white hair. Have you ever seen a picture of her in her old age . She is striking. So she was like the woman of action and he was like the man of words. I am happy to take any other questions you have now. Thank you. [applause] yes, sir. Going back to Harriet Tubman, do you have any idea from your research or from writings about her, given the geography of the Eastern Shore and southern maryland, the approximate route that she would be the underground railroad . I know there was a stop in georgetown a couple blocks away, but that may not have been one of hers. Do you know how jamie not exactly, no. They were not the same each time. She would not replicate the journey. We dont know who the kind helpers were. But for the presence of maryland quakers, that made all the difference in the world. As i said last time when we spoke about mott, quakers dont brag about, they dont make talk about their good deeds. They do them just to do them. So we dont because she didnt leave any written records, we dont know what the maps were of her journeys. But they were a long way, they were very arduous. They might have to get down on their hands and knees and crawl over certain, you know, little rivers or all the obstacles in their way. If you can imagine doing that at night, under cover of darkness,ou had to have this incredible deep desire to be free at all costs. Thats why she took small groups that was safer that way, but in anyone returned to the that was like all of them being betrayed because they would probably be whipped and tortured ntil the truth was told. She had this incredible iron will and discipline and physical capability to its more than stamina. I think its the heart, soul, body, mind, everything. In the past, there have been reports that she rescued as many as 500 from slavery. It was probably a smaller number , their kin. These were her people. She wanted to let them go. She earned the respect of people like john brown, who knew what she had been through and there was no other woman like her during the civil war. She was a standalone, and he as, too. They liked each other. They respected each other. They were like comrades in the me war, but i do not believe they were personal friends. They didnt necessarily hang out together, but they knew that each could be relied on to do their part in the fight forward. But i dont think they had that much personally in common. , was raised very differently and how many have you have seen pictures of Harriet Tubman . Ow would you describe her . Tiny, strong. I think she was no nonsense. I dont know this for a fact, but she might have thought ok, you play your part onstage, but i do the dangerous work at night. They just didnt have that much in common, but who could have ritten such a beautiful ode to her as he did in thats why i read that, because i think from a distance, he realized that her part in the cause was just as valuable as his. Does that answer your question . Yes. I had a question, a statement listening to you talk about their relationship between ms. Tubman and Frederick Douglass. As i am listening to you, i am thinking about malcolm x and Martin Luther king. I think they both knew they had two different jobs to do and that their fight was they had the same cause but their fight was different. Jamie thank you. Thats a great insight. So the contrast between malcolm x and Martin Luther king and the man who was a pacifist, nonviolent resistance and malcolm x, fiery, a revolutionary, in a hurry, maybe more militant. The same fight with two different ways of fighting. I wrote a screen play and have been trying for the last tin years, could not find documentation regarding Frederick Douglass. My question is i am trying to figure out is Frederick Douglass actually talked to lincoln or nyone in washington, trying to jamie i dont believe so, no. I know as i am sure you discovered that again was another final catalyst for the civil war because lincoln and douglass and all of the people on the union side, the emancipation side, were that was such an incendiary decision that that was also like the civil war was coming closer and closer, the dred scott and lets just say that roger connie, who was the Supreme Court chief justice, he is from maryland. He was a maryland slave owner, very wealthy maryland slave wner, and his brotherinlaw was who . Francis scott key was his brotherinlaw. During the time before the family actually freed scott after the dred scott decision, you dont know if there was any communication with Frederick Douglass and the chief justice or the president . Jamie i dont believe so. I havent come across that. Thats an excellent question. Sorry. When you said that lincoln was the ultimate casualty of the civil war, did i hear you right . Ok. Jamie yes. Our friend sarah jencks works at fords theater. I have learned a lot from you. Do you have anything you want to say about douglass or lincoln . Sarah jencks. Sarah the only thing i have to say is if you are really interested in douglass, today is the celebration of his birthday and it goes on until 4 30. I encourage you to go and find out more because its wonderful. There are all sorts of events happening all day. Jamie today and tomorrow . Sarah no, just today. I thought it was tomorrow also. He celebrated his birthday as february 14. He didnt know when his birthday actually was but he celebrated it as february 14. The events are today. Looked it up. Jamie you know where to go next. Hank you, sarah. Is there any evidence or rumor that she actually used her pistol . Jamie not in none of the biographies i have read, not in the documents i have seen. I have met some of her family, too, in cambridge. The fact that she had one and it was loaded, that sent a very strong signal. She would use it if she had to. In baltimore, there was a mural that depicted her with a gun, a street mural. A lot of neighborhood organizations were upset to see gun violence depicted on a community wall. An artist said this is my vision of Harriet Tubman. I am not taking the pistol away. Do you remember that . That was a fascinating dialogue. You could see the point of view from both sides. But the pistol was an important part of her leading to freedom. Do you think that her biggest concern was that someone who started out on the journey would want to go back . She had to kill them because they could tell the route . Jamie absolutely. They would be whipped and tied and they would be abused until they told the truth. Slavery was a very you learned from douglass accounts how physical slavery was. S back was bruised and scabs and scars and Harriet Tubman had a lot of bruise u. S. And scars to show for slavery, too. It was a physical ordeal. It could be every day out in the fields. Yes, sir . Did i hear you right that the family who enslaved Frederick Douglass still owns the property . Jamie yes. They do. Research to try to determine his father and is he within the family . Jamie the lloyd family . Could well be. I dont think theyve done any d. N. A. Tests to prove it. But it was an extraordinary experience, like in a time capsule, to go to this incredibly well preserved place. It was still owned by the family. It wasnt a museum. Mrs. Lloyd took me into the parlor, and she said, when frederick was a boy, he came sailing down with some of his friends, so he is a distinguished statesman and he told his friends that thats the house where he was born. The great house. He still thought of it as his , andod home and he stopped the latest young mr. Lloyd took him in and his friends, welcomed them, and served mint juleps on the porch, just because they happened to be sailing and because Frederick Douglass had some warm feeling about his past even though he was a slave, separated from his mother and grandmother. To he had a concern link this place, and the young man who took him and his friends in was the grandfather of mrs. Lloyd that i was talking to. One or two degrees of separation. He kept passing down that story as a sense of an accord, reconciliation. There was even a sense of pride that Frederick Douglass was born there. In his book, he says there are few people that he was closer to than tommy, his childhood playmate, that when tommy got older, he became he took on , and he and privileges became master. He was still a slave. So that relationship was defined by the society that they lived in, and tommys father called Frederick Douglass to his deathbed because he wanted to have a last word with frederick and to ask his forgiveness. He went to say goodbye, and he said well, frederick, i would have done the same thing in your place. He captures a lot of dialogue and conversation and characteristics. This is not the greatest autobiography in africanamerican literature. This is one of the greatest autobiographies in american literature. I often go back to it. I found it as a used bookstore in san francisco. Went to baltimore with me and there was a man who called himself Frederick Douglass iv who looked just like him on the water front. He signed it for me. Are there any other questions . Frederick douglass and susan b. Anthony are buried almost next to each other in rochester, in the cemetery. Jamie that sounds right. They were comrades, too. Her actual birthday is february 15, coming up on monday. Jamie lincoln was the 12th. Quite a concentration. Yes . Michelle. Michelle i would love to know when the model we have in the present day are for what Harriet Tubman did and what Frederick Douglass did. The notion that you can work underground and on a one to one basis standing up in front of a crowd. What are the models that we have today that meet the needs of those two lives, of Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass . Jamie does the floor have any answers to that question . We would look at what are the what are the laws . That is unequal and designed to ep people back, down absolutely. And then who out there making the greatest effort to change that reality . I want to know who they are. Jamie i would say immigration would be another cause and lacking someone who can put forcefully and eloquently the way Frederick Douglass did from is own experience. Thats an excellent question. I dont have an answer for you. Sarah, do you . If Frederick Douglass were alive today. Jamie if Frederick Douglass was alive today he would be a master of social media. And lincoln would be. They were masters of communication of their day. There are people who are using social media, especially twitter, really effectively as a means of conveying messages. And i think, i cannot remember anything right now, but i follow them. Go online and just follow people who are dealing with social justice. Especially in the black lives matter movement, you can find these people. They are people like Frederick Douglass, and to some extent, the thing about Harriet Tubman, she came late. Deeds, not ar of speaker of words. Finding her jaime social media as the same force, it brings people together the same way as being in the same space. And i would say maybe not. [laughter] we have a woman black lives matter movement, i dont necessarily see i know the history. But i do feel like there was a movement. Harriet tubman was a leader. Her movement would be the black lives matter movement, essentially. I would feel like Frederick Douglass, the contemporary, being electoral politics. Someone that was going down that road. Tanehsis coats. Frederick douglass. He had the ideology. Jaime Frederick Douglass also, like Lucretia Mott, spoke in the inspiration of the movement. He did not prepare his words ahead of time. There is a certain urgency and fervor that he brought to his message that Lucretia Mott did as well. And the age of the spoken word, it was singular. It achieved its purpose in a way because there was so much fermet, so many movements, you know, violence or nonviolence . Wartime. But here in washington, senators will stand on the floor for hours. Clay, webster, there was just a lot of speaking and listening. And having words penetrate in person. And so, i have to say that is what is missing from social media. Is the power of the spoken word. And the assembly, the congregations. [laughter] yes . Well, let me nominate one other person to fill the Frederick Douglass role, someone down in north carolina. Where there is retrogression, going back to the days of the black vote and denying it the right to vote. And reverend barber has marshalled tens upon tens of thousands in with his rhetoric and speaking and urgency, barack obama is great. To get people on the street. Jaime that is not Barack Obamas phrase. Whose phrase is it . Dr. Martin luther king. My point was that reverend barber would be a good candidate for the Frederick Douglas role, right now. The whole monday movement. Yeah. Jaime thank you for adding that. So we dont know Harriet Tubman because she was quiet . I mean, im trying to get my head around it. Jaime she was secret, too. She was known not to all, but a few. And that was part of her power. She was kind of a mythical figure in her own time. Moses, maybe there is somebody like that that we do not know about. [inaudible] and exists right now, and they are leading. Jaime quietly, because theyre having to defy the law of the land. Is there a question from this part of the room . So, i just want to mention, we got that book. My husband and i, and we found that it does not work for us to read it to ourselves. So we are taking a half hour a night, or more, and reading it to each other. Aloud, because the words resonate in a way that is not just literary. Not just good writing. There is a power. It is very deep. Jaime where did you grow up . Baltimore. Jaime thank you for adding that. I think we want to confuse the medium. It is like when printing was invented. It was a way of transforming the written word, rather than taking hours, whatever form social media takes, recording this digitally whether it is on facebook or twitter, this now enables people from everywhere to have a soapbox. Which never happened before. For instance, we do not have cars. You cannot go to baltimore. Imagine how long that will take today, in this weather . It is transforming this planet. And it is bringing all of those things that these people jaime it has expanded radically, the public sphere. That is why i totally agree. You know, you can go on to youtube and put music on there. All of a sudden, you have bubbled up, gone viral, become famous. No one knows who you are. Similarly, where in the past we had these individuals that really had to be strong in order to make an impact, whether they did it secretly by physical means or whether they as the gentleman did change the political scene, which is different jaime the power of the individual voice. Now that power, the medium has opened up. The social media that we have is global. And it is changing us. Jaime yes, indeed. I want to thank everyone for coming. Jaime thank you very much. It is been a fascinating exchange. [applause] a history buff. I do enjoy seeing the fabric of our country and how things work, and how they are made. I love american artifacts. I had no idea of the history. Youmerican history gives the perspective. I am a cspan fan. This years student cam documentary competition was our largest yet, nearly 6000 middle and High School Students took part alone or in teams of up to 3. We received nearly 2900 entries. Even from schools as far away as taiwan and the united arab emirates. Now its time to award 100,000 in prize money to the winners. For this years contest, students were asked to produce documentaries using our road to the white house theme, specifically to document what issue they most wanted the candidates to discuss during the 2016 president ial campaign. Through thei