Frederick Douglass Continues to Inspire at the Library

by Bill Peak

The other day, while enjoying a meeting of the Frederick Douglass Day committee—all participants alert and purposeful—I found myself thinking about how much my life has changed since I moved to the Eastern Shore.

When I got out of graduate school, back in 1974, I had a romantic notion of what my life as a writer would be: I would take whatever menial jobs were on offer so long as they kept food in my belly and paper in my typewriter. Such an approach, I thought, would give me the opportunity to see the real world at the gritty level of the people I wanted to write about, real down-to-earth, working class people. Patronizing perhaps, but at least it was (I pray) unconsciously patronizing.

At first “the real world” welcomed my fantasy. In those early years I easily found employment as a day laborer, a bellboy, a bartender, and a header on a shrimp boat. But it was while working on the shrimp boat that it finally dawned on me why writers living such an existence were often called “starving artists.” After my first two weeks at sea, I received a paycheck totaling $24.

Rethinking my options, it wasn't long before I found myself working as a writer for a large lobbying organization in Washington. The pay was great, the benefits spectacular, and the work boring … but it was the meetings that really got to me. As a bellboy I hadn't had to attend meetings, nor had I while digging ditches, tending bar, or heading shrimp. I still have my notes from one of those first, interminable group discussions. At the bottom of the last page I've written, “I detest meetings.”

Don't you? I mean, there always seems to be someone in every meeting I attend who wants to go on about something, often at length, for no other reason than to hear their own voice. Meanwhile you're squirming in your seat thinking of all the work you could be getting done if you could only get back to the peace and quiet of your own little desk.

But my attitude toward meetings underwent a subtle change after I moved to the Eastern Shore. Slowly but surely I began to realize that, with only a few sad exceptions, people out here never inherited the everyone-wants-to-hear-what-I-have-to-say gene.

The Frederick Douglass Day Committee serves as a perfect example. It has been my privilege to represent the Talbot County Free Library on this committee for … geez, I don't know, ten years now? However long it's been, I can assure the people of Talbot County that the legacy of our most famous native son rests in good hands.

And perhaps it's because of Douglass that the meetings go so well. With his life ever foremost in our thoughts, how could any of us be anything other than serious and selfless in our deliberations? It is a rare meeting of the Frederick Douglass Day committee that lasts more than an hour, yet we always seem to get done everything that needs to get done. And we have fun doing it.

This year's Frederick Douglass Day will take place on September 23 and feature a parade (marching bands and dancers), a big fancy welcome on the courthouse lawn, an entertainment stage with singers and musicians, and, at the Easton library, Douglass memorabilia courtesy of the National Park Service, a presentation by an up and coming Douglass scholar, and, of course, the ever-popular Children's Village.

All of this will be great fun, but Frederick Douglass Day will also serve as the kick-off event for a new children's reading program that I am particularly excited about. Douglass himself said, “Once you learn to read, you will be forever free….”—so we're calling this program the Frederick Douglass Reading Challenge.

The challenge is simple. Beginning on the day of the festival, and continuing till the first of November, young people from 6 to 18 years of age will have the chance to win one of three $50 gift cards from Target by reading a biography of Douglass (there are plenty of these—suited to all ages—available at both branches of the library).

Once the child has finished reading the book, he or she will fill out a raffle ticket with their contact information and a fact about Douglass they learned from the book, and then turn the ticket in to either branch of the library. They can fill out a raffle ticket for each and every Douglass biography they read. All raffle tickets must be turned in by November 1^st. A drawing will then be held for each of the three $50 Target gift cards (limit one per child) that will be handed out by representatives of the Frederick Douglass Honor Society at a special reception in the Easton library on November 7^th.

So if your child or the child of someone you know might be interested in learning more about Talbot County's most famous native son, and, by doing so, earn a chance to win a $50 gift card from Target, make sure they don't miss this year's Frederick Douglass Day!