Becoming Frederick Douglass is a documentary film which premiered on US television (PBS) in 2022.
The topic is the life of the famous African American abolitionist and social reformer Frederick Douglass.
This film explains why he is important; why he plays a significant role in the history of the United States.
Here is some basic information about it:
** Directors: Stanley Nelson and Nicole London
** Writer: Anne Seidlitz
** The voice of Frederick Douglass: Wendell Pierce
** Language: English
** Subtitles: English
** Available on the PBS website
** Run time: 54 minutes
Several persons are interviewed in the film. Here are the names of the participants
** Gerard Aching – professor, Cornell University
** Edward Baptist – historian, Cornell University
** Nick Bromell – historian, University of Massachusetts
** Christopher Bonner – historian, University of Maryland
** Gloria J. Browne-Marshall – professor, John Jay College of Criminal Justice
** Marchia Chatelain – historian, Georgetown University
** Eric Foner – historian, Columbia University
** Adam Goodheart – historian, Washington College
** Farah Jasmine Griffin – professor, Columbia University
** Vincent Leggett – founder: Blacks of the Chesapeake Foundation
** Keith Leonard – professor, American University
** Robert S. Levine – professor, University of Maryland
** Sarah E. Lewis – art historian, Harvard University
** Kenneth B. Morris – president, Frederick Douglass Family Initiatives
** Derrick R. Spires – literary historian, Cornell University
** John Stauffer – professor, Harvard University
** Amy Murrell Taylor – historian, University of Kentucky
Douglass was born in Maryland, but the exact year of his birth is not known. Douglass himself assumed he was born in 1817. But modern scholars assume he was in fact born in 1818. The difference is not great. Only one year.
He was born a slave, but resented this fact from an early age. In 1838, when he was around 20 years old, he managed to escape to the North. He wanted to be a free man.
Once he was in the North, he contacted members of the African American community in the North.
When he contacted the Anti-Slavery Society, he met William Lloyd Garrison (1805-1879), a white abolitionist, who was the editor and the publisher of a magazine called Liberator, with which he campaigned against slavery.
In 1841, when Douglass attended a public meeting held by the Anti-Slavery Society, he was invited to talk about his experience as a slave in the South.
It was the first time he had to give a speech in public. He was a former slave who had no formal education. But it went well. The audience liked what they heard and saw.
He was well-spoken. He was able to present his ideas and to catch the attention of the audience.
This occasion was the first of many public speeches. He also wrote many articles which were published in the Liberator.
In 1845, his autobiography was published. Later in his life he would write a second version and towards the end of his life he would write a third version.
** The second version was published in 1855.
** The third version was published in 1881.
** A revised edition of the third version appeared in 1892, only three years before his death in 1895.
When his book was published, he was a marked man. He had marked himself as a target. While many Americans in the North supported him and his cause, he was hated and feared by many white Americans in the South.
White slave-owners in the South hated him, because he spoke against slavery. White slave-owners in the South feared that his ideas might reach African American slaves in the South and inspire them to struggle for their freedom.
In order to remove himself from danger, at least for a while, Douglass travelled to Britain and stayed there for almost two years (1845-1847).
In 1847, he returned to the US, because he wanted to continue the campaign against slavery in his own country and not from abroad.
Around this time, he began to distance himself from Garrison. They no longer agreed on everything. In order to be truly independent, he started his own newspaper called The North Star.
In 1861, when the Civil War began, Douglass wanted African American men to fight for the Union against the Confederacy. But in the beginning of the war, the US government refused to accept African Americans volunteers as soldiers.
Two years later, in 1863, a regiment of African Americans was formed. Douglass himself was not a soldier. He was too old to join the army. But he had two sons who joined the army.
In 1865, after the end of the Civil War, the US adopted the thirteenth amendment to the constitution, which marks the end of slavery in the US.
The long campaign against slavery conducted by Douglass and many others had finally reached its goal. Slavery was abolished in the United States.
I like this film, and I want to give it a good rating, but I cannot go all the way to the top. Why? Because there are some flaws. Not mistakes, but sins of omission.
Let me explain:
# 1. This film covers the early part of Douglass’ life in great detail, but the story stops when it gets to the end of the Civil War in 1865.
Douglass lived until 1895, but the final three decades of his life are not covered at all.
# 2. Douglass supported the suffragettes, the campaign for the female vote. The formal beginning of the campaign for the female vote was a convention held in Seneca Falls (New York) in 1848.
Both men and women were present. Douglas was one of the men who were there. He not only attended the convention; he also supported the documents which were adopted during the convention.
He understood that the struggle against slavery was not an isolated problem. The struggle for freedom had many aspects. The struggle against slavery was closely related to the campaign for the female vote. And he supported both of them. But this aspect of his life is not mentioned in the film.
# 3. According to the traditional view, slavery was abolished by the thirteenth amendment to the constitution which was adopted in 1865. But the traditional view is not quite correct.
According to the text, slavery has been abolished and can never come back, “unless as punishment for a crime.”
In other words: the amendment which was supposed to put an end to slavery in the US contains a loophole which explains that slavery under certain conditions is allowed to continue. But this fact is never mentioned in the film.
# 4. More than fifteen persons are interviewed in the film. They are chosen because they are regarded as experts who have something useful to say about the topic.
David W. Blight is not one of them. He is not seen or heard in this film.
Who is David W. Blight?
He is a Professor of History at Yale University.
Why should be appear in this film?
Because he is the author of a recent biography about Frederick Douglass which has been well received by critics as well as the general public.
On Amazon there are at the moment more than 2,400 global ratings of this book, and more than 300 with reviews.
The average rating is 4.8 stars, which corresponds to a rating of 96 percent; this is an extremely high rating for a non-fiction book about American history.
The biography was published in 2018 and won the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for History.
But the author of this highly-acclaimed biography is not interviewed in the film.
As you can see, there are some flaws here. Not mistakes, but sins of omission. I have to remove one star because of these flaws. This is why I think it deserves a rating of four stars (80 percent).
RESOURCES
# 1. Books
Giants: The Parallel Lives of Frederick Douglass & Abraham Lincoln by John Stauffer (2008)
Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass: The Story Behind an American Friendship by Russell Freedman (2016)
Frederick Douglass: American Prophet by David W. Blight (2018)
Frederick Douglass: The Lion Who Wrote History by Walter Dean Myers and Floyd Cooper (2021)
The Failed Promise: Reconstruction, Frederick Douglass, and the Impeachment of Andrew Johnson by Robert S. Levine (2021)
# 2. Film and video
The Abolitionists
PBS, American Experience,
Three episodes, 2013
Frederick Douglass: In Five Speeches
Run time: 58 minutes
HBO, 2022
Harriet Tubman: Visions of Freedom
Run time: 54 minutes
PBS, 2022
*****
Anna Murray Douglass
(1813-1882)
Wife of Frederick Douglass
1838-1882
*****
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