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For the past five years, the principal activity of the BPW team has been developing a photographic essay of the Talbot County of Frederick Douglass. The book is entitled, Bear Me Into Freedom: The Talbot County of Frederick Douglass.

The publisher is the St. Michaels Museum at St. Mary’s Square in St. Michaels, MD. St. Michaels is a small waterfront town in Talbot County on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, the county where Douglass was born and spent eleven of the first twenty years of his life. Publication is slated for November 1, 2022.

Bear Me Into Freedom represents a monumental effort by Talbot County residents and others deeply committed to Douglass’s legacy to provide a new perspective on the county's most famous son. The book is intended to be an important contribution to the scholarship surrounding one of the most consequential figures in American history. The wrenching experiences he had during his Talbot years became the foundation of the powerful narrative he used so effectively to advocate for abolition, emancipation, and civil rights.

Bear Me Into Freedom will show what the places in Talbot County that were part of Douglass’s experience may have looked like when he was present. Douglass wrote three autobiographies chronicling his time in Talbot County, and several biographies add further detail. No one, however, has attempted a photographic essay that can provide a pictorial sense of how Talbot County may have influenced his narratives.

Regarding the title of the book and its derivation, an explanation can be found here.

The website that supports the publication of Bear Me Into Freedom can be found using the link below.