WORDs set me free

"Words Set Me Free: The Story of Young Frederick Douglass," written by Lesa Cline-Ransome and illustrated by James Ransome, tells the story of a boy born into slavery who taught himself to read, even though it was illegal.

Author Lesa Cline-Ransome and illustrator James Ransome, who live in Rhinebeck.

Some photographs of Frederick Douglass are below. During his life, Frederick Douglass had more than 160 portraits taken, making him the most photographed American of that time. This was part of his fight against racist illustrations and cartoons. Frederick Douglass believed that photographs let him present himself to the world as a human being worthy of respect and dignity.

With his second wife, Helen Pitts (and her sister Eva). When people criticized Frederick Douglass for marrying a white woman, he would tell them that his first wife was Black, like his mother, and his second wife was white, like his father.