Our Bondage & Our Freedom

Frederick Douglass & Family ~
Their Struggles for Liberty 1818-2018

"Our Bondage and Our Freedom" is funded by the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council and takes place in 2018-19 during the 200-year anniversary of the birth of Frederick Douglass (1818-1895), a formerly enslaved and self-emancipated African American author, orator, philosopher, activist, statesman and social justice campaigner.

This international project draws together academics, activists, archivists, curators, teachers and artists to discuss the activism and authorship not only of Frederick Douglass himself but of his wife, his daughters and his sons: Anna Murray Douglass (1813-1882); Rosetta Douglass Sprague (1839-1906); Lewis Henry Douglass (1840-1908); Frederick Douglass Jr. (1842-1892); Charles Remond Douglass (1844-1920); and Annie Douglass (1849-1860). While Douglass’s life has been the subject of extensive research, the lives and works of his wife and his daughters and sons –

each of whom were radical reformers and revolutionary activists in their own right – have suffered from ongoing neglect. Working to tell the story of the Frederick Douglass family’s collective freedom struggle, this project consists of a series of exhibitions, city trails, education programmes, learning guides, book publications, digital resources, workshops and symposia. It is a collaboration between the University of Edinburgh, the Walter O. and Linda Evans Foundation, the National Library of Scotland, the Frederick Douglass National Historic Site, the Maryland State Archives, the Black Studies Research Center at the University of California Santa Barbara, and the SCAD Museum of Art in Savannah.

For Douglass’ rallying cry, “My Bondage and My Freedom” it is now possible to read: “Our Bondage and Our Freedom.”