169k views
14 votes
Frederick Douglass didn’t smile in any pictures.why not

2 Answers

12 votes

My Answer:

Frederick Douglass chose to not smile in those photographs as he doesn’t want to be portrayed as a ‘happy slave' and rather prefers to show the “face of a fugitive slave.”

User R H
by
4.5k points
11 votes

Answer:

he wanted to counter “happy slave” caricatures that were common at the time

User HansTheFranz
by
4.6k points