Happy "Birthday," Frederick Douglass

Found online:

The caption says it all. The image links to the photographer's Flickr page.

Douglass estimated -- or guesstimated -- his birthday to be in February. There is no documentation for this, and he, in fact, also guesstimated his birth year to have been 1817 when documentation has shown he was born in 1818. Of course, this was one of his point in his autobiographies. He did not know when he was born, nor did any other slaves, because the system of slavery was designed to keep slaves ignorant of everything, including the circumstances of their own births. Like many other features of his life, the date of his birth became part of Douglass's self-invention. He claimed a name, an education, a career, the right to formulate his own ideas, his freedom, and his own date of birth. As he portrayed himself, he symbolically gave birth to himself.

"As he portrayed himself": What really happened? Well, that's where things get interesting!

2nd Marriage

On this day, January 24, in 1884, Frederick Douglass married his second wife, Helen Pitts. The two went to work at the Recorder of Deeds office, where he was Recorder and she was a secretary working, at one point, under the supervision of Rosetta Douglass, Frederick's daughter. At the end of the day, they proceeded to the 15th Street Presbyterian Church in Washington, D.C., where they were married by the Rev. Francis Grimke' (the black nephew, incidentally, of the white sisters Sarah and Angelina Grimke'). Outrage issued from both black and white corners, including both of their families; and he seems not to have been entirely forgiven for this to this day. As for her, in the lawsuit-ridden aftermath of his death, I've notice a struggle for the position of the real Mrs. Douglass in the efforts to commemorate Douglass. More on that as I research it.

Interesting tidbits from the newspapers in the wake of their wedding:

• The New York Globe reported that Helen wore a "garnet velvet and silk" dress -- yes, red! -- while "the groom wore a full suit of black." 
• The Washington D.C. Grit headlined the wedding announcement as "The Mistake of His Life," saying "It is not only a surprise, but a national calamity," adding, "But he suited himself; so we leave him in his glory (?)."
• Columnist Africanus in the Cleveland Gazette accused Douglass of attempting to "bleach out the race" through miscegenation.
• The Louisiana Standard exaggerated their age difference, saying "We must say that marriages between septuagenarians and young ladies in their thirties are not according to our idea of the fitness of things." Still, the editors, "wish the venerable old man a happy evening of his eventful life." Douglass was on the eve of his 66th birthday. Helen Pitts was forty-six.
• Not in a newspaper, but Elizabeth Cady Stanton turned a congratulatory letter into a plea for woman's suffrage.