231k views
5 votes
Toward the end of his slave autobiography, Frederick Douglass describes asking a white abolitionist friend in New Bedford named Johnson picking a new last name for him, a moment that dramatizes Douglass's insistence that we can invent our own identity. Where does Mr Johnson get the last name "Douglass"?

User Richsilv
by
4.1k points

1 Answer

7 votes

Answer:

While enslaved, he was named Frederick Augustus Bailey. Douglass had changed his last name to Johnson when he went to New York City but in New Bedford, there were already a number of people with the same name.

User Kodfire
by
5.0k points