Clueless in La Mesa

Today my bishop asked me what my most significant impression had been during my week in Washington DC. Without hesitation, I responded that I was most impressed by the person of Frederick Douglass.

On my first day in DC, I scanned my map of national monuments, and was intrigued by one monument that was two miles off the National Mall to the east, in a neighborhood called Anacostia. The monument was for Frederick Douglass. I had read juvenile biographies of Mr. Douglass, but had an embarrassingly myopic view of the magnitude of this visionary man. My awareness was so limited, that I had to take a minute to sort out the difference between Frederick Douglass and Steven A. Douglas, who were both contemporaries of Abraham Lincoln.

Anacostia, once a blue-collar suburb restricted to white people, is where Frederick Douglass defied zoning traditions and established his final residence. It was a downhill jog to the monument, so I made a morning workout of it, thinking to ride public transportation back to the National Mall. On the tour of the monument I learned that Douglass had a carriage, but that he insisted upon walking up to the city when he went. He was close to my age when he started this practice, and he continued it for eighteen years. Following his example, I too walked back up to the Mall.

I absorbed much of his history and philosophy at the monument. With these fresh in my mind, I was amazed at how frequently Mr. Douglass' influence surfaced around Washington, and how frequently he was referenced throughout the week. Pictured here is a page from my National Park Service Passport. This Frederick Douglass sticker from 1992 is the only individual monument sticker available on the Mall right now. (The stamped cancellations in my passport may help you identify some of the sights I photographed in my last post.) Also pictured here are a cover from a compact disk that Seth discovered in a used book store near DuPont Circle, and one of the backdrop panels Glenn Beck chose to use at the "Restoring Honor" Rally on 8-28.

I invite all of my readers to examine the life of Frederick Douglass, a courageous visionary, an exemplary patriarch and a great American.