Frederick Douglass: Legacy, Truth, and Liberation - A Conversation with Kenneth B. Morris Jr.

In this episode of Culture & Consequence, Carmen and Andrea sit down with Kenneth B. Morris Jr., a direct descendant of Frederick Douglass, for a powerful conversation about legacy, truth, and the ongoing fight for liberation. Morris shares personal insight into Douglass’s life, the often‑erased contributions of Anna Murray Douglass, and why understanding real history — not the sanitized version — is essential to our present moment.

The discussion moves from Douglass’s global impact and mastery of photography, to the whitewashing of American history, to the urgent work of combating modern slavery through education. Morris also reflects on Douglass’s relevance in today’s political climate and what his ancestor’s words can teach us about dissent, activism, and the responsibility we carry forward.

This is an educational, deeply human conversation about where we come from, what we’ve inherited, and what liberation truly requires.

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Music By Geovane Bruno, Moments, 3481
Editing by Team A-J
Host, Carmen Lezeth


DISCLAIMER:  As always, please do your own research and understand that the opinions in this podcast and livestream are meant for entertainment purposes only. States and other areas may have different rules and regulations governing certain aspects discussed in this podcast.  Nothing in our podcast or livestream is meant to be medical or legal advice. Please use common sense, and when in doubt, ask a professional for advice, assistance, help and guidance. 

Transcript

Conversation with Kenny Morris

Carmen: [00:00:00] Okay. Um, hey everyone. Welcome to all about the joy in the house is Kenneth Morris. Hi Kenny.

Kenny: Hello. Hi, Carmen.

Carmen: Um, uh, let me introduce you and Andrea 'cause you guys have never met, although Andrea has already admitted that I clearly talked about you too much so. but, um, yeah, so I'm, I'm so glad you're here. Thank you so much. Um, I always like to tell people how we met, but first let me tell people who you are, and you can correct me if the lingo has changed. 

Kenny: Okay. 

Carmen: the CEO and well, you are the president and co-founder of the Frederick Douglas Family Initiatives Organization.

Kenny: Mm-hmm. 

Carmen: say it that way because it's changed since I volunteered and did some I basic bookkeeping, or we did a video together. Um, 

Kenny: Yeah, a while ago.

Carmen: a long time ago it was like, 

I think it was like 2009 or something. 

Kenny: would've been a couple of years after we started the [00:01:00] organization in 2007.

Carmen: Yeah, and I think we met at a bar. I mean, we met through a mutual contact, but I think the first time I met you was at a bar. 

And that's what, that's what, I remember.

Kenny: My recollection was that it was a, like a party, um, I think it was like a private get together.

Carmen: Okay. Yeah, that sounds better. Okay. Yeah. Not a bar. Not a bar. Right. It was a private get together. Right? That's what it was. 

Andrea: That sounds 

Carmen: At a bar. Right. a bar, right. But, um, but yeah, so welcome to this show and um, I'm gonna let Andrea do all her fangirling stuff. 'cause that's how this started from a couple episodes ago.

Andrea: Well, yes. First it's, I'm thrilled to meet you. Carmen obviously has mentioned you many, many times over the years, which leads to, I don't know if you saw the episode, but. I'm in my history documentary era and I was watching an Abraham Lincoln won the History channel and all of a [00:02:00] sudden your face and your name were up there.

And I was like, I know that guy. I mean, I dunno that guy, but I know that guy because Carmen talks about you. You know, I don't, I don't wanna say all the time, but you know, she's definitely mentioned you and obviously I knew her and knew when she was working for the foundation, et cetera.

So. 

Carmen: Be Before we go any further, I just wanna say, 'cause I thought about this, you can't ever do that again with the people that I know. Like I thought with Kenny's different because he's actually a personal friend, but I thought about that, right? Like if you're ever watching TV again, don't do that ever again.

Yeah. Funny mention that.

Andrea: Well, I can do it on my own, but I won't bring it up on the

Carmen: No, no, it's okay. I was just cracking up. 'cause at first when she said it, I was like this. Like, who is she gonna mention?

Kenny: Oh, right, right. Well, I did see the episode and it's nice to meet you, Andrea. And uh, thanks for the shout out.

Carmen: oh, of course.

Andrea: Absolutely. Absolutely. So I'm just super excited. I, I mean, I have, you know, read some, uh, you know, done a lot of reading on, on [00:03:00] Frederick Douglass and have since watched a couple of more documentaries. There's the PBS one that you are also in. Um, so, so I'm excited to meet you and to have you here today with us.

Kenny: Well, thank you for having

Carmen: Yeah, I wanted to talk about, I mean, there's a lot that we're gonna try to cover in the next, you know, hour or so. But one of the things that I think was intriguing about that episode was why don't people know about Frederick Douglass? Um, and I should also mention you are a direct descendant of Frederick Douglass.

So your family, um, of Frederick Douglas. And I always mess up how many greats, but I say I think direct descendant is good enough, right?

Kenny: Yeah, well, just, um, for your audience, um, I am the great, great, great grandson of Frederick Douglas, and I'm also the great, great grandson of Booker t Washington, and I know that's a whole lot of greats to try and remember.

Carmen: right, right. Because I was just saying like a whole bunch of them. But um, but on the serious note, you know, Andrea kind of talked about that she didn't think people knew about Frederick Douglass and I. I think everyone knows about Frederick or should know, but [00:04:00] you actually kind of brought that up as well and the difference between Ireland and Scotland and, um, what's your take on what's happening and why?

We don't know.

Kenny: Well, I think that many people know the name Frederick Douglas. And then there'll be different levels of. You know how much they know about him. You know, some people will have name recognition. You may remember, um, back several years ago that the person currently occupying, uh, the White House had, um, said Frederick Douglass and I'm paraphrasing is yeah, he's doing great things as if he were still alive.

And that's kind of been, um, a blessing and a burden for us because it's something that, that people still bring up to this day. All of these, all of these years later. And so there is some name recognition for. Um, I think many people, but then you'll have a subset of people that will know, um, maybe basics about his story, that he was born enslaved.

He taught himself to read and write. He escaped. He became an abolitionist and advisor to, to President Lincoln. And then you'll have people that [00:05:00] will, um, they'll be fans, they'll be enthusiasts, and they'll know a lot about him. And, um, and so it's, it's something that I think when I look back at my public education that I had, and really the whitewashing of.

African American history and Native American history and placing by design, um, US in an inferior position so that we don't see ourselves in this history. And I remember being in high school, and there may be a paragraph or two about Frederick Douglass, about Booker t Washington, Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks.

You know, they'll give us a few people, but they give us the safe Frederick Douglass, the the white-haired statesman, the grandfatherly figure, the. Prophet that's looking away from the camera, not the Frederick Douglas, the young Frederick Douglas, the abolitionist, who by design said, I never want to look like a happy, amiable, fugitive slave.

And so he's looking directly in the camera. With that steely fiery gaze. They didn't give us that [00:06:00] Frederick Douglass, they also gave us a water down Martin Luther King, not the radical king. So I think it has a lot to do with, um, just the way the history has been taught. But you mentioned Scotland and Ireland, Ireland and England, and we do a lot of work, um, in those countries.

And people over there seem to know more generally about Frederick Douglass and his story than they do 

Carmen: A about a lot of things. Sorry, I just wanna say one thing I asked someone the other day, a young person. Like I asked them and they said, yes, I know who Frederick Douglas. He was an abolitionist. And I was like, what's an abolitionist? They didn't know. And so for our listeners, the abolish slavery, like that is the simplest way to understand.

But I thought it was that fascinating that they didn't know what it meant. Like just in a simple definition,

Kenny: Do you know how, how, what age was that young person, do you think? Yeah, yeah. It's um, it says something [00:07:00] about, you know, our education. 

Yeah,

Carmen: It, it really, really does. So, um, all right. I, I have a list of questions, but I, and I told Andrea she could have it, she could have you completely. I didn't even need to be here, but clearly I'm all up in it, so, um, but yeah.

Andrea: So do I get to take it away then?

Carmen: Yes, you can. I'm just gonna interject 'cause I wanna make sure we go through his list of things that he wants to talk about.

Andrea: Okay. Okay. Well, yeah, just interject when

Carmen: Yeah. No, no. Fangirling, so, okay.

Andrea: uh okay, fine. I mean, I did, I do feel a little bit like we're, you know, we're the producers on our own documentary and I get to ask my questions that I, you know, have not heard answers to yet. But, um, I mean, you kind of touched on it a little bit.

There was, you know, the question about, you know, why, why is it that people don't know more, but what. What is it that you want people to know about him? What, what is the thing or the, what are the things that, that are really [00:08:00] most important you think, for people who maybe don't know that much or just know the name to, to know about Frederick Douglass?

Kenny: Yeah, that's, that's a beautiful question. And I would say, you know, that I want people to know that he's one of our country's greatest heroes and most influential heroes. And his story of, um, being born into slavery and, and not. Knowing who his father was, it was presumed that his father was his owner, his master, uh, he only saw his mother four or five times his whole life, and that's because she lived on a plantation that was 12 miles away.

In order for her to see her son, she would have to work in the fields picking cotton from sun up to sundown, walk 12 miles in the middle of the night, and spend just a few moments with him until he would fall asleep. He was about a year old. When he was taken from his mother, and then she would have to walk 12 miles back so she could be back on the plantation.

By the time the sun came up, he had been separated from his brothers and sisters. They were like strangers to him, and he truly was an orphan with no family, no home [00:09:00] and no country. And I say no country because as an enslaved person, he was not considered a citizen of the United States. But in, in spite of all of that.

He was able to rise up and to go on to affect change in the world around him and to affect change for all of us all of these years later. And as we've already talked about, he was an abolitionist. He was a leading voice in the abolitionist movement. He published the North Star newspaper out of, uh, Rochester, New York, which was a mouthpiece for his brethren.

His people that were enslaved, um, was an advisor, uh, to Abraham Lincoln, and then went on to become the first. African-American, nominated for Vice President of the United States, first African-American, US Marshal, first African-American Ambassador and Council General to Haiti, first African-American record recorder of deeds in the District of Columbia.

And, um, not many people know he was the first African-American to be honored with a statue in 1899, which was four years after he passed away. And that statue still stands in Rochester, New York, [00:10:00] where he's buried. And so he's an important figure and, um, I. Everybody should know about him and everybody should read his speeches.

He's one of the greatest speeches in American history is what to the American slave is the 4th of July and I'll stop there, but, um, you know, there's a lot to learn about

Carmen: No, but that's probably the speech that most people do know or they know the snippets of. Um, but yeah, that's a pretty famous, um. One of his, go ahead, Andrea. I'm sorry. Mm-hmm. It's hard, you know, it's just hard for

Andrea: Can you share just a little bit more about, um. Why people in Ireland and Scotland know so much more about him. And, and you know why I read somewhere that he was really the most famous American of the, of the 19th century, um, even more so than a lot of the presidents. And maybe you could talk a little bit about that and some of his travels and things like that.

Kenny: Yeah, he was, um, we, I worked on a project on a book that was published, I think it was in 2015, um, [00:11:00] with three scholars where we made the case that he was the most photographed American of the 19th century. Uh, photographed more than Abraham Lincoln, more than Ulysses s Grant, and his only contemporaries in the world that were photographed more than he was, was the British royal family.

And that was by design, as I said a moment ago. Um, he was, you know, from the age of 22, only two years from move from slavery, he understood that this new technology, photography that he would come of age with, he could use to make his arguments, uh, for liberation and equality. And he said, you know. Again, when you look me in the eyes, you're going to see my humanity.

You're going to see that I'm a man worthy of freedom, worthy of citizenship. And he was also counteracting the notion in the public consciousness that people of African descent were not worthy of freedom and citizenship. And, and he's, you know, there were lots of racist caricatures that were out there that showed black people as less than humans sometimes with tails.[00:12:00] 

Exaggerated facial features. And so he's gonna place himself right in the middle of that and, and say, I'm not going to be a happy, amiable, fugitive slave there. You had people that were pro-slavery in the federal government that were making a group of people and other by to try and justify taking away their freedom and treating them inhumanely and exploiting them for profit.

And they would say things like, they're better off in slavery. Listen to the happy songs. Um, that they're singing. So he is, wants to make sure that he places himself right in the middle of that, just to change that narrative. And then as far as your question about England, Ireland, and Scotland, when he escaped slavery at the age of 20, he would eventually around 22 or 23.

And whenever we talk about him, we have to use an age range because he didn't know his birthdate. He wound up choosing February 14th as his birthday because on one of the visits that his mother made, she brought him a heart-shaped cake and called him her little Valentine. And so [00:13:00] he chose February 14th, so when he was around 22 or 23, he starts to become the spokesperson for the abolitionist movement.

He starting to become a celebrity and he's going from town to town. City to city, talking about his firsthand experience of being enslaved, and he was a paid lecturer for the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, and his mentor was William Lloyd Garrison, the white abolitionist. But he started to have a problem as he's going around talking about.

His, um, his condition of enslavement, people started to doubt that he had ever been enslaved. They couldn't wrap their minds around what they thought a slave looked and sounded like, and what they were seeing in this good looking, well-dressed, eloquent, charismatic man. And so they started to call him a fraud.

And in order to prove who he claimed to be, he wrote his first autobiography, narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, which was published, um, in Yes. And that's our, um, bicentennial edition of [00:14:00] it. It was published in May of 1845, and once it was published, he had another problem. And that problem was it became a bestseller.

And that's the last thing that you want is the notoriety of a bestselling book. If you're trying to hide from your enslave. It made him a celebrity, a household name, and so it suggested that he flee to Europe. It's kind of a cooling off period, and he could, um, speak about the abolition of slavery, raise money, get support, um, for the mission back here at home.

And so he would. First land in England and then he would spend four months in Ireland. He would spend time in Scotland and he would be in Europe for almost two years and eventually land in a place called um, Newcastle. Upon tying in England and with the help of his abolitionist friends, they raised enough money.

Uh, to negotiate and purchase his freedom from his enslave for what was 150 pounds or $711, and he was able to come back to the United States finally as a free man. But in England and Ireland and Scotland, we do a lot of [00:15:00] work over there. There was a statue. That was dedicated to him in Northern Ireland, in Belfast a couple of summers ago.

And their street's name for him, their historic markers. There's art and murals all over those countries and, and people just generally know this history. Um, they were inspired by the abolitionist movement over there, by the civil rights Movement. And so it's, um, interesting and I love, I love to visit those countries

Carmen: You know what?

I, I am sad as you're speaking. I didn't know all of this in all of, you know, you're giving us really great education here. Me too. 'cause I didn't know all of this and how it happened, but I'm sad listening to this because it just shows how much as the United States, we do not know our history and we don't even revere the good parts.

We don't even try. So you're talking about like, it's not just Scotland and Ireland and, and England, but it's, they, they actually revere who he was, you [00:16:00] know, and they teach him I am just, everything about this country is making me so sad all the time.

Kenny: Yeah, well, you know, we, we spend a lot of time, most of our time in K through 12 schools, and you'll remember, uh, Frederick Douglas's great quote. It's easier to build strong children than to repair broken men. And I always add to that in Broken Women. And so our focus is building strong children, and we spend a lot of time teaching not only about Frederick Douglass, but Booker t Washington, um, Anna Murray Douglass, Olivia Davidson, Washington, and the Douglass in Washington families.

Carmen: Yeah. You wanted to talk about Anna Murray Douglas. I wanna make sure, oh, Andrea, I'm sorry. I,

Andrea: No, that was one of my questions. Tell us about Anna.

Carmen: yeah, I, I had no idea. I mean, you. I Now I know, but I don't know how. I didn't know. I'm a little embarrassed. I mean, that was his wife and she's been erased completely. And you are [00:17:00] making sure that doesn't happen anymore because she was the reason behind why he was able to do so much.

Kenny: Absolutely there would be no Frederick Douglas without Anna Murray Douglas. She was the first person in her family to be born free, and she was a businesswoman, an entrepreneur in Baltimore City. Um, she was working as a domestic servant, and she was working on the Underground Railroad when she met a teenage Frederick Augustus, Washington Bailey, and she saw potential in him.

She started to care about him. He started to care about her. And as they started to think about what a future, uh, together would look like, slavery was not going to be a part of it, especially for her. And so she, she

Carmen: Sorry. That's 

Kenny: said she was, she was, no, no. She was one of the first, uh, people to plant the seed of thought in his mind that, Frederick, you're not meant to be a slave for life.

I don't care what your. In slavery, your master says, says to you, and then as they are starting to think about [00:18:00] possibly having a family together, she said, Frederick, I don't want our children's father to be a slave. And had she not sold her personal belongings, including a feather bed to help finances escape, had she not sewn and put together the sailors disguise.

That he would wear. Who knows if he would've had the courage or the wherewithal to run away and had that not happened, we would be a very different country sitting here today without the contributions of Frederick Douglass as the abolitionist and all of the other things that I mentioned When we first started our conversation, she was a radical freedom fighter in her own right.

She was a conductor on the Underground Railroad, and we know Harriet Tubman's story. Uh, pretty much. And, um, Anna helped to ferry hundreds of freedom seekers hundreds to their freedom through their house in Rochester, New York. Uh, after the 1850 Fugitive Slave law, um, was enacted, you had to go all the way to Canada to be free, especially if you're running away from the upper South.

You know, the closest place where you could get your freedom was in Canada, [00:19:00] and Anna was the person along with their five children. That helped, um, these freedom seekers that clothed them and fed them and made sure that they could get rested to go onto the next stop on their journey. The whole family was a radical freedom fighting collective.

The children were learning typesetting at the North Star Newspaper, um, that Anna made sure that they learned typesetting the children.

Carmen: setting is, what

Kenny: writing articles and editing articles for their father. They were writing articles under pseudonyms and the abolition of slavery and fighting for women's rights. And human rights was the family business.

And not only has Anna been written out of this history, mostly by male Douglas scholars who. Did not see her as important in the story. And they would say things and they still do some of them about, well, she was in the kitchen and she was in the garden, and how come Frederick never talked about her?

Meaning he mistreated her, didn't care about her because he didn't talk about her. And I always [00:20:00] say, what makes you think that was his decision? You've got this strong black woman who was a queen who was running the household, people were coming to see her. She was working with Harriet Tubman, she was working with Sojourner Truth, and he was on the road constantly.

So she's an very important, um, figure in this story. And we've been working very hard, uh, to lift up her life and legacy and to teach about her. And we've had a lot of success in the past five or six years. There's a school in Rochester that sits. On the um, land where their house once stood before it was burned down by an arsonist and it was renamed the Anna Murray Douglas Academy in 2018.

And of course, as I mentioned to you when we talked offline, that Duke University Press will be publishing the first Anna Murray Douglas biography called Revolutionary Liberator by Dr. Celeste Marie Burner, who I consider the foremost Douglas Family Scholar in the world. And she's an advisor to Frederick Douglass Family Initiatives.

Carmen: when is that gonna be published?[00:21:00] 

Kenny: September of this year,

Carmen: of this year, so we'll

Kenny: and here's some, yeah. Oh, well, and, and here's some other news too. In addition to that volume, there will be another book that's published that I call the Book of Receipts, which are all of the, you know, thousands of documents and family letters and correspondence that she's transcribed, and the thousands of photographs that will be included.

And I call it the book of receipts because there's so many people that have been invested in telling the story. The same way and controlling the narrative that this is going to shatter, you know, the way that people have been talking about her. Said to Celeste, we need to make sure that we have all these documents that people can refer to to see that this is not something that we're just making up.

But that information was out there. Any scholar, historian could have found it if they wanted to look for it. Now, Celeste wanted to look for it. She's very talented researcher as well as a writer and presenter as well. So that book will come out and then [00:22:00] following. The remainder of 2026. Throughout 2027, there are going to be another eight volumes of books that will be published by her University Press, which, which is the University of Edinburgh and Scotland.

And each of those volumes will be on the five Douglas children. Um, there's actually two volumes on Lewis Douglass who fought in the Civil War for the Massachusetts 54th. There's a volume on the grandchildren, so we're. Going to be change, working to change that narrative, taking back control of the way the family is seen and treated in this history.

Carmen: Can I ask you a personal question? Um, I mean, it probably seems obvious, but I wanna know why is this so important to you?

Kenny: Well, it's important because.

Carmen: mean, you're passionate, you're, I mean, I can, I mean, Andrea, correct me if I'm wrong, but you're almost angry about it, and I've known you for a long time. It, why is it so important to you?

Kenny: I am, I've been around [00:23:00] and in the skin for a long time, and as a little boy I've interacted with people that, you know, really admire my ancestors and. You know, when I was younger, uh, people with gray hair, old people would come up and with tears in their eyes and wanna hug me or. Pinch my cheeks and tell me how much they appreciate what my ancestors did to inspire them to believe that they could be and do anything possible.

And so I've seen how my ancestors' stories have impacted people my whole life. Um, and that's a positive. When I was younger, I never really understood the emotional connection that people had, and I didn't feel I was deserving of that kind of attention. It took me many, many years, um, to be able to understand that and appreciate it.

But on the other side. It's been violence upon violence of our family to have people write and talk about Anna and the children in the way that they have, and to know because of the stories that have been passed down through the [00:24:00] generations, that what they're talking about has no basis in fact, and it's just cruel.

And so if you just imagine, and my mother too, you know, she's. I've been living longer than I have with all of this, and so we're, we're very passionate about wanting to correct the record, and, and it's, it's taken a while to get to this point, but we finally have,

Carmen: I, I have been around you when I've seen people realize who you are and it's kind of, it's a very different kind of celebrity, um, than like if you're around somebody that I've worked for or something, you know, somebody who's a Hollywood, but it feels so heavy. Such like, it, it, it feels like you're carrying so much of the weight of history on your shoulders.

And I just, I'll take a moment and just say, I've, I've never met someone like you with that kind of background and the way you handle it is always been astonishing to me,

you know? 

Kenny: Well, I appreciate you saying that. And [00:25:00] yeah, you're right. There has been kind of this weight of expectation that I have carried on my shoulders most of my life. But I will say, and and you, you've known me now for. You know, a number of years that because I found the mission and the work on my own, it's much more meaningful than it would've been had it been forced on me.

But when I was younger and, you know, moving into adulthood, I'd seen what the pressure had done to those that came before me, and my parents and grandparents and, and great grandmothers. You know, wanted to go kind of in the opposite direction and not force this on me and my younger brother and sister. So they really kind of put up this hedge of protection around us to shield us from, you know, very formidable legacies.

And that was a positive and I appreciate that. But also there's a negative to that because I really grew up as I describe as decisively disengaged from my lineage until Providence called in my life. And you know, really just. [00:26:00] Kind of sometimes even embarrassed about it, you know, when I was younger and the few times that I would tell people of my relationship, nobody ever believed me, including, you know, teachers and a principal.

And when you're a kid and people don't believe you, you don't talk about it, you're, you're embarrassed to talk about it. So, um, it was something that I really had to eventually step into my own shoes and, and that took a while.

Carmen: I'm so glad you did though. Uh, I'm just glad you did. Um.

Andrea: What, was there a catalyst or something if, if you're able or willing to talk about it? Like what, what did make you sort of turn towards it rather than away?

Kenny: Yeah. Okay. Y'all have some good, deep questions. Let me, I'm glad we've got, I guess we have about 30 minutes or so 

Carmen: Well, don't, don't, don't worry about, I mean, yeah, I,

Kenny: I, 

Carmen: I, I usually cut it off at 45 minutes, but this is too good, so.

Kenny: well, well, let, let me back up a little bit. So, um, I, I get two questions when people meet me, uh, for the first time that kind of the same [00:27:00] questions, and people will say, uh, so you're related to Frederick Douglass and to Booker t Washington. Well, what do you do? And they always follow that up with and it better be good.

So if you can imagine that kind of weight of expectation is placed on you right away by most people that you meet. And then the other question I get is, so I know Frederick Douglass and Booker t Washington weren't related to each other. How was your related to both of them? And so that happened all on my mother's side of the family.

My mother's mother, Netty, Hancock, Washington is Booker t Washington's granddaughter, and my mother's father, Frederick Douglas II is Frederick Douglas's. Great-grandson. And so my grandparents met in 1941 at Tuskegee Institute, uh, which is a school that Booker t Washington founded in 1881 at the age of 25 years old.

And my grandfather had been commissioned down there by the Veterans Administration during World War II to the only black. VA hospital in the country. My grandmother had been born in that [00:28:00] hospital on campus, but she was actually living in California at the time, and she was just home for summer vacation and she wanted to meet some friends on campus, and my grandmother was always running late, you know, frantically running late.

That's one thing that I remember about her. And so if you can get this visual of her rushing across campus, um, to, to meet her friends. And my grandfather had decided this one evening to eat in the student cafeteria. He had never eaten in that cafeteria before because they had their own place where they ate, where the doctors.

And so he's strolling Cooley to get something to eat and she's rushing and they literally bumped into each other. Didn't know that the other descended from an historic family, and they fell in love at first sight. And wound up getting married just three months later. And so when my mother, uh, was born Neddy, Washington Douglas, she was the fir first person to unite the bloodlines of the families.

And she was an only child. And so I have the honor and privilege and blessing to be the first male to carry the dual lineage. So that's, that's the happy love [00:29:00] story. There's also a tragic side to this story, and that is my grandfather, Frederick Douglas II was the namesake of one of this country's greatest heroes.

And people expected him to be an iconic leader, um, like his great-grandfather. And my grandfather was brilliant. As I said, he was a surgeon, but he carried this weight on his shoulders. And when my grandmother was three months pregnant with my mom, that weight became too much for him to carry, and he took his own life.

So my mother was born without a father and raised without a father. And then when I came along with this dual lineage, and again, the first male, again, my, my family wanted to protect me from all of that. And so I didn't want anything to do with this legacy and lineage for most of my life. And went to high school and then went to college.

And there weren't, people didn't even know of my relationship. Most people didn't know of my relationship until I actually started [00:30:00] doing. The work at Frederick Douglass Family Initiatives. And so to your question, uh, what changed for me was I, in 2005, I was a successful business owner. I owned my own advertising and marketing company, um, a father to two daughters, um, a husband.

I'll be married 41 years in May. And so I was very proud of all of that and I was really kind of living. The American dream that I had been indoctrinated with this idea that, you know what you should do is you should make a lot of money and have a big house, a nice house, and drive a nice car. That's what I was I wanted to do.

And so I'm in my forties, but everything changed. I was starting to feel unfulfilled. I felt like I had been given so much and I was not giving anything back other than going to church and tithing every Sunday, and so. I read a National Geographic magazine cover story that was from 2003, but I didn't read it until 2005 and the [00:31:00] headline was 21st Century Slaves, and it was an article about human trafficking.

Existing all over the world, including here in the United States. And, and that article really floored me. I'd heard about trafficking and sex trafficking, but I always thought about it in far off places. I didn't really think about it as what could be considered a modern form of slavery. And so I wanted to learn more about the issue.

And so I just started researching and reading everything I could get my hands on. And then one night I was in my living room. And I was reading an article about a 12-year-old girl who was forced to be a sex slave in the brothels of Southeast Asia. And down the hallway I could hear my daughters getting ready for bed.

And my older daughter, Jenna, was 12, so she was the same age as this girl that I was reading about. And my younger daughter, Nicole, was nine. And they're having fun and laughing and about to get down on their knees to say their prayers. And my mind just starts racing and I can't wrap my brain around what I'm [00:32:00] reading.

Then what I'm hearing, and I remember thinking to myself, that's what young girls and boys should be doing, is getting tucked safely into bed and not being forced into bed to serve as some sick individual. And when I walked in to say goodnight to my, my girls, I had this moment where I couldn't look them in the eyes.

I, I literally could not look them in the eyes and then walk away and not do something about this. And it was almost immediately, everything just started kind of. Um, boiling inside of me and, and I, I, I started to understand that I did have this platform that my ancestors had built through struggle and through sacrifice, and perhaps we could leverage the historical significance of my ancestry to do something about this.

So on one side, we had the legacy of Frederick Douglass as the great abolitionists and an anti-slavery legacy. And on the other side. The legacy of Booker t Washington as the great educator, and it was this kind of moment, aha, aha moment of abolition through education. [00:33:00] And so we looked at a story in Frederick Douglass's life, or I should say Frederick Augustus Washington, Bailey's life that is really at the foundation of the work that we do, and that was when he was about eight or nine years old.

He was chosen from among all of the children on the plantation, on the eastern shore of Maryland where he had been born into slavery to go to Baltimore. To be the house servant for his Enslavers family. Now, the importance of this move was he was leaving in an environment where he wasn't around children or people that could teach him to read and write because we know or we should know from our US history, it was illegal to teach an enslaved person to read and write.

But now he was going to be in the big city. He was going to be around free black children. He would be around poor white children. But what happened, most importantly when he got there, was his owner, his slave mistress, did not know. That it was illegal to teach him, and she was teaching her young son, Tommy and Frederick Bailey was Tommy's playmate.

So Frederick was [00:34:00] alongside when the lessons were being taught, and he was bright-eyed and le eager to learn. And so this is a important nuance point of this story that's not often told the way the story goes. His Sophia Ald, outta the kindness of her Christian heart, began to teach young Frederick his ABCs.

But the part that's not often told is that Frederick asked her to teach him, and I consider that his first moment of self liberation. And so she would begin to teach him his ABCs, and the lessons continued for. A while until his master found out about him, Hugh Ald. And when he found out he got angry and he looked at his wife and he looked at Young Frederick and he said, you cannot teach a slave how to read and write because if you do, it will unfit him to be a slave.

And I know you all heard that message, and Frederick heard it and he looked at his master and thought, Hmm, if you don't want me to have this, I'm going to do everything in my power to gain it. He understood right then and there that knowledge is [00:35:00] power and that education equals freedom. Education equals liberation.

Education equals emancipation. And he would teach himself to read and write. So when we started our organization, we thought, how can we unfit communities to allow slavery to exist and thrive? And it's through education, primary prevention, education, and we're a leader in that space.

Carmen: Let me also just to make the connection because. You were calling it, I don't know if you're still doing it now, but modern day slavery, going back to the image you had of, um, the young girl not being tucked into bed, but in still to service. Right. So is that the connection that you're making right there?

Kenny: Yeah, so we, yeah, so we, and we call, we do consider it a modern form of slavery because if you look at. Historic slavery. And you look at contemporary forms of slavery and you boil down the basic elements, it's all about, uh, control and exploiting the most vulnerable among [00:36:00] us for profit, for money. And so while there are differences today, um, slavery is not legal anywhere in the world.

And of course in the 19th century it was legal, it was state sanctioned. Um, so there's the big difference there. But we definitely, um, consider it a modern form of slavery.

Carmen: Right, which is the abuse of children of young girls, but also trafficked young men. Um, children. Children.

Kenny: there are estimates, and it's hard to know, but estimates that there are, are more than 40 million, uh, people that are in some form of servitude around the world, and many of them are children. And so we feel that we need to be in school, um, working to reduce the vulnerability of young people, um, to be in trafficked for sex and for labor.

Carmen: Yeah. I mean, I, I love that your organization does this, but I, I also hate. That there's still a need. I mean, you know, that's a whole [00:37:00] other conversation, but

Kenny: Yeah, that, that's a whole other conversation and, you know, strategies and how this is approached and how we approach it. But, um, we we're very proud of the work that we've done in training, educators training. Um. People in the community and really anybody that comes into contact with young people on how to recognize the signs of trafficking, what red flags to look out for, and then certifying teachers to teach age appropriate, uh, curriculum in the classroom.

And, um, we do this K through 12 and unfortunately we have to start that young, but again, it's all age appropriate, um, education and, um, you know, we're making sure that we're trying to prevent the victimization in the first place.

Carmen: And just to be clear, this is in the United States as well. This isn't some somewhere else in some third world country? This is here in the United States. Um.

Kenny: it's, it's everywhere. Unfortunately in the United States, it's in our backyard and that was kind of the realization that I had when I read [00:38:00] that National Geographic article. And that was what, you know, really changed everything in my life and really changed the whole trajectory of my life.

Carmen: Um, can you talk a little bit about maybe what's happening today in our country, in politics, and why Frederick Douglass is relevant, still relevant today, and what he would think of what's going on in our country today?

Kenny: Uh, unfortunately he's still relevant today. He, um, he wrote three bestselling autobiographies. He, um, let me put my. My computer on mute here. He wrote three bestselling autobiographies. As I mentioned, he published a North Star newspaper, so he's written, you know, thousands of articles and essays and his, his work, his words still speak to us, to us today.

And, and people do often ask me, you know, what do you think Frederick Douglass would say if he were here today about the state of our politics and, and our nation and where we are. And that's a difficult question. I don't think really anybody can answer, [00:39:00] you know, what he would say or how he would feel, but I always say, because his blood flows through my veins, I'll take some liberty and, and think that if he were here today, um, that he would be somewhat pleased that we have made incremental progress, certainly, um, since his time.

Imagine living at a time where your federal government said it's legal to own you and illegal to teach you. I think most people would walk away from that and thank goodness he and many others didn't, or we would again be a very, very different country today. That's, those challenges seem insurmountable to me, so he would be pleased that there has been some progress made.

We elected and African American president, most recently we had a female vice president of color. He would be pleased I think about that. But I also think he would be outraged to know that there's still so much work to be done and so many ma many of the challenges that he faced, um, we're still [00:40:00] facing today.

He said, without struggle, there is no progress. And so we're in the midst of a mighty struggle for sure. And. At a time during the Civil War, you know, he spoke to the nation about moral consciousness and he was, I think, a leader. His spirit rose above, you know, that great conflict and, and I believe his spirit today, um, still rises above everything, you know, that we're facing in the challenges that we're facing.

And as, and as I say to students and, and even adults. What will our great-great-great grandchildren say about us 150 years from now in this moment that we find ourselves, were we on the right side of history or on the wrong side of history? Thank goodness my ancestors were on the right side of history and, and of course I'm very proud of that.

And so there's still a lot of of work to be done. We are as divided as a country as we've been in a very long time, and it's our [00:41:00] obligation to make sure that we're carrying that torch of equality and freedom forward and then passing it on to the next generation of leaders and the mold of the great freedom fighters that came before us.

And so I think it's. We can learn a lot from history. You know, we need to know where we come from in order to know where we're headed. And Frederick Douglass's words, um, speak to, to the state of our nation right now, and we can call on his words for inspiration, but also for guidance.

Carmen: Mm-hmm. I'm trying to leave a space open for you to ask.

Andrea: You looked like it was, you were ready to go. I mean, I, I had a question that was somewhat similar, um, but. I wonder if you could speak a little bit to this. He's, Frederick Douglass seemed to be, um, certainly open to having conversation, um, with people across ideological, uh, you know, the, the spectrum, right?

Respectful, dignified conversation, um, whether it was in speeches or his writing or, or other things like that. And. I guess I'm looking for some sort of grain of hope or guidance and, you know, in this [00:42:00] moment, what can we take away from that to use in this moment that we are in where you, as you said, we're, we're sort of, you know, as divided as as we've been in recent years and it, it can feel very hard.

I'll speak for Carmen as well as myself to, to. Even think about having respectful, dignified conversation with, with some of the people who, um, you know, disagree with the basic aspects of, of human rights at this point.

Kenny: Yeah, I, I would agree with you that he would have, um, respectful conversations with people, but he also was unafraid to speak truth to power.

Carmen: Mm-hmm.

Kenny: And he agitated. There's, there's a great story. Um, he spent the last 17 years of his life in Washington, DC in a home that's now a national historic site. And if you've never visited or the people watching or listening have never visited, it's a, it's a really inspirational [00:43:00] place to.

And he, Frederick loved baseball too. In fact, my great-great-grandfather, Charles, who was Frederick and Anna's youngest son, um, played for a negro uh, baseball team and also was a part owner of a team. And, and so Frederick loved baseball. He was also a musician. He taught himself to play the violin and he was very accomplished at that.

He taught his grandson Joseph, who was my great-grandfather. How to play the violin. And Joseph would continue his, um, music education at the Boston Conservatory of Music. In fact, that school a few years ago named one of their lobbies in one of their music buildings. After Joseph, uh, because of his connection to the school, Joseph would go on to be a come a concert violinist and play all over the world.

He played in the White House on a few occasions, and so he was, Frederick was a great teacher, um, as well. But back to the baseball. So Frederick would play baseball with the kids in the neighborhood. And, and there was a story about this one young man that came up to him once and [00:44:00] said, what advice or ask, what advice would you give to somebody like me who wants to fight for justice and, and fight, uh, for equality?

And without hesitation, the great abolitionist looked at the kid and said, agitate, agitate, agitate. And that's what he did. He agitated, he made people feel uncomfortable. Again, he was not afraid to speak truth to power. And I think all of us, um, you know, can take that as an example to not be afraid to speak truth to power.

And a good friend of mine who, um, Dr. Daniel Walker, who I do underground railroad trips with every summer, in fact, this summer will be my 21st year leading this trips for educators. And Dr. Walker talks about. You know, all of us have been in situations, let's say at a job and we're in a meeting and something is said in the meeting that is, could be racist, it's not right, and we don't say anything when we're in the meeting.

But then we get into [00:45:00] the parking lot and have a two hour conversation about what we should have said in the meeting.

Carmen: right. Exactly.

Kenny: so even in, in situations like that, that it seems like a small situation. And it takes a lot of courage to do that because people are concerned about losing their jobs, um, are concerned about friendships, but we need to make sure that we step up and we do what, what's right.

We, we know what's right. At least we should know what's right. Not all of us, I, I guess, don't, don't know what's right. And so, you know, these are lessons that we can take away and, and, and make sure that we don't find ourselves in situations where we're un we're, we're, we're afraid to, to speak up.

Carmen: I think it's important to mention, um. This is part of the quote unquote whitewashing also of our history is, you know, we always want to look at Martin Luther King Jr. As this, oh, I have a dream speech. But he was an agitator as well. Or we do the same thing with sports figures like Muhammad Ali. All of a sudden [00:46:00] we forget who he actually was.

You know that, that he was an agitator, that he refused to do certain things, that he changed his name, right? Wasn't it? Cassius Clay, and then. I don't even know anything about the sports part, but I know everything about what mattered in that. And I think that's part of it as well is, you know, kind of making that smooth over.

We just wanna remember the pearls, the, the really perfect things that kind of fit into the quote unquote Americana idea of the United States as opposed to the actual truth. And so I, I just love that. Um.

Kenny: observation about that is right. Uh, we wanna whitewash, sanitize and deodorize, um, this history and then take the parts that fit into our narrative and that happens with Dr. King. His, you know, his, his speech and what people cherry pick out of that. We talked about Frederick Douglass's 4th of July speech and, and that speech.

[00:47:00] Is really kind of in three parts. The first part, he talks about the founding fathers as being wise men, but he also says oppression makes a wise man mad, but, but he's lifting up the founding ideals and he's lifting up the Declaration of Independence and the promise of that, not that the work has been done, but there's still work to be done.

And then he transitions into the second part where he lays into his audience. And these were. His friends. These were anti-slavery people that were in attendance in Corinthian Hall in Rochester, July 5th, 1852. And he said, what to the American slave is your 4th of July? I answer a day. That reveals to him more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim.

And he goes on and he says, this country is guilty of practices that would disgrace a nation. Of savages, and I would argue that we're still guilty of practices that would disgrace nations. But then he ends on a [00:48:00] hopeful note and he said, you know, at the time the country was only 76 years old and. There's still a lot of work, but we have time to, not necessarily time.

We can still aspire to those founding ideals. And so people will cherry pick little parts of that speech to fit their narratives to say, oh, Frederick Douglass was anti-government. He loved the founding fathers. He loved his country. He loved and he hated

Carmen: That's right. That's right.

Kenny: went back and forth. Um, so to your point.

People will pick parts of their, their stories and their legacies to fit their narratives that they want to tell. And I, I wrote an article on my substack called Hijacking Frederick Douglass, and it's about mostly black Republicans. Trump supporters, MAGA black Republicans that have hijacked Frederick Douglas' legacy to fit into their talking points and what they want to try and communicate.

And they ignoring [00:49:00] 99.9% of everything else that he said and everything else that he stood

Carmen: That seems to be what they do anyways, but I want that link for that substack, and I'll put that in the show notes as well. Look, we could talk for so many more hours, um, because there's just, you're such a wealth of information. So I just, I'm, I'm gonna, I say thank you for being here, but I wanna beg you to consider coming back especially.

When the next book comes out. I mean, you can come back whenever you want, but I'm just saying it would be great, um, to also talk about, uh, Anna, how do you, Anna Murray Douglas' book?

Kenny: Yeah, I would love to come back and I've really enjoyed the conversation. Thank you so much for having me on. And Andrea, thank you. You're really kind of the catalyst behind this in bringing up the Abraham Lincoln documentary on the History channel. Uh, so that's what kind of in 

Carmen: She's never this quiet and everything. So, um, [00:50:00] everyone, thank you so much for hanging out with us. Um, I will put everything in the show notes and remember at the end of the day, it really is all about the joy. Thank you everyone.

Kenny: Thank you.

Andrea: Bye. Thank you.