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Frederick Douglass National Historic Site
Cedar Hill 1411 W Street, S.E. Washington, D.C. 20020-4813
Home of Frederick Douglass from 1877 until 1895
Famed abolitionist, human rights advocate, orator, writer, publisher, and statesman Frederick Douglass (1818-1895) was nearly 60 years old when he and his wife, Anna, purchased the stately 1850s brick house that he named Cedar Hill, now preserved as a National Historic Site.
Douglass was born into slavery on a Maryland plantation, separated from his mother as an infant, and subjected to sometimes horrific cruelty by his slave masters. He was not allowed to attend school, but through his extraordinary drive and determination became a self-educated and celebrated anti-slavery author and speaker who called on Americans to confront the barbaric injustice of slavery. His passionate fight for freedom, equality, and dignity-for himself and for all men and women-propelled him into the public eye for decades, bringing him into contact with presidents and politicians, abolitionists and activists, writers, musicians, and artists.
At Cedar Hill, he surrounded himself with handsome furnishings, paintings, documents, and mementos that reflected his many achievements. He entertained visitors in the west parlor and dining room, and each day spent several hours in his book-filled library, reading about politics, philosophy, and law-and writing with passion about the struggle for equality and justice. For Douglass, that struggle was an ongoing battle, one that did not end when the Civil War drew to a close. During the period of Reconstruction, and especially while he lived at Cedar Hill, Douglass challenged Jim Crow laws and segregation, joined the anti-lynching movement, worked tirelessly for women's rights, and did everything in his power to rouse the conscience of a nation in the quest for civil rights for all Americans.
Photo Gallery
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