Fresh Courage Take

Fear comes naturally, but courage takes some work.

Frederick Douglass is famed as an abolitionist and civil rights crusader. But before he became a 19^th-century celebrity, he lived and worked in the shipyards of Baltimore’s historic Fell’s Point neighborhood. Douglass was a skilled laborer — a caulker. That meant he sealed the gaps between the wooden planks of a ship’s hull. He did it by pounding oakum (a cloth fiber) into the gaps, which he then painted over with hot pitch to make the seam watertight.

Frederick Douglass was also enslaved.

In 1838, he was doing about as well as an enslaved worker could. His caulking skills were much in demand. He earned good money for his master, who in return provided him with room and board. Douglass’s housing accommodations were a good bit more comfortable than the crude shacks of plantation workers, where he’d lived at an earlier time of his life.

In Baltimore, Douglass was not confined in any way. He could roam the city at will, and he did. He had friends,...