A couple of years ago, in the halcyon days before the pandemic, I went with a small group of friends to visit Cedar Hill, Frederick Douglass’s house in the southeastern corner of Washington, D.C. On the way there, we drove past the rowhouses of what used to be called Uniontown, the city’s first suburb, constructed in the 1850s in what was then farmland. Uniontown was originally “whites only”; Douglass, being Douglass, bought the house anyway, and lived in it from 1878 until his death in 1895. Eventually, the house became a landmark, even a kind of cultural center. The growing community of free Black people in the area sought his advice there; the city sought his services too. Douglass was named U.S. marshal for the District of Columbia, then its recorder of deeds. He also upgraded Cedar Hill, a classic Victorian home, expanding it to 21 rooms, so that it could accommodate his children and grandchildren, as well as a stream of visitors. Now you can see the table where he had dinner, the desk where he wrote his speeches, his book collection, the iron cooking pots in his kitchen.
OP-ED
Anne Applebaum: A real place deserves real rights
An American flag is seen as Indian army helicopter flies during a one-day strike in Srinagar on Feb. 17, 2021, ahead the arrival of foreign envoys.
