The Lost History of Frederick Douglass and Irish Americans

During his quarter-century of living in Washington City Frederick Douglass maintained an affinity for Ireland and its people by forging new relationships and friendships with members of the local Irish American community and cultivating newfound connections to Ireland in the emergence of a Home Rule movement Douglass fully embraced.

The New National Era, published under the editorial guidance of Frederick Douglass and his sons in the early 1870s, was consistent, if not strident, in its support of the Irish Home Rule Movement.

During local calls and national efforts to provide support to causes related to Ireland Douglass regularly attended meetings in Washington City and contributed monies to the fundraising cause and encouraged his friends to do so as well.

When Irish dignitaries from artisans to members of Parliament visited and spoke in Washington following the American Civil War they were often joined by Frederick Douglass.

On several occasions, while living in Washington City, Douglass delivered a lecture, “Thoughts and Recollections on a Trip to Ireland," before the Travel Club and an African Methodist Episcopal Church.

After serving in the US diplomatic corps as Minister to Haiti, Douglass delivered a speech on Haiti in which he invoked Daniel O’Connell in comparing the struggle for freedom in Ireland with the struggle for freedom in Haiti.

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PRESENTER:

Presentation will be led by local historian and author John Muller, author of Frederick Douglass in Washington, D.C.: The Lion of Anacostia and Mark Twain in Washington, D.C.: The Adventures of a Capital Correspondent.

Muller has presented widely throughout the DC-Baltimore metropolitan area at venues including the Library of Congress, Newseum, Politics and Prose, American Library in Paris and local universities. He is currently working on a book about the lost history of Frederick Douglass on Maryland's Eastern Shore.

He has presented “The Lost History of Frederick Douglass in Western Maryland” at various venues such as the Washington County Central Library in Hagerstown, Ebenezer AME Church (Hagerstown) and Frostburg State University as well as presenting the “Lost History: Frederick (Bailey) Douglass in Baltimore” at the Enoch Pratt Central Library in Baltimore City.

Muller has been featured on C-SPAN’s BookTV and C-SPAN’s American History TV, as well as in the pages of the Baltimore Sun, Cumberland Times-News, Spirit of Jefferson, Star Democrat, Washington Post , the television airwaves of WDVM (Hagerstown) NBC4 (Washington), WJLA (Washington), WMAR-2 (Baltimore), WBAL-TV (Baltimore), ABC-47 (Eastern Shore) and local radio stations WPFW, WAMU, WYPR, WEAA, Delmarva Public Radio and West Virginia Public Broadcasting.