Frederick Douglass/ Liberty in Washington Post, Nov 16, 2023
Should Frederick Douglass be posed in a rap squat? Descendants say no.
Recently unveiled mural sparks debate in historic, sleepy town in Maryland, where Douglass was once enslaved
—Petula Dvorak, November 16, 2023
The man on the building-high mural is crouched in a rap squat, his suit cut slim and feet in high-top Converse sneakers. Behind him, the word “liberty” appears as spray-painted graffiti, still dripping. A chunky watch adorns his wrist.
The hair is familiar, the gaze “majestic in his wrath,” as women’s rights activist Elizabeth Cady Stanton once called it.
There’s no mistaking Frederick Douglass — reimagined as, what, Doug E. Fresh?