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The 1845 cover of Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave
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Douglass's Escape from Slavery
Can you believe that a train conductor held the fate of Frederick Douglass's entire life in his hands? Douglass described his daring escape on a train ride from Baltimore to Philadelphia in his autobiography, Life and Times of Frederick Douglass (1881). For the journey, Douglass disguised himself as a sailor wearing a red shirt, a tarpaulin hat, and a black scarf tied loosely around his neck. He also had to be able to talk like a sailor. "My knowledge of ships and sailor's talk came much to my assistance, for I knew a ship from stem to stern, and from keelson to cross-trees, and could talk sailor like an 'old salt.'" Besides a disguise, what else do you think Douglass needed?
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