Association Founder Publishes Pictorial History of Frederick Douglass’s Early Life

HR Policy Association founder Jeff McGuiness, whose vision, drive and unique style set the foundation of today’s Association, returned to his roots as a photographer and writer, publishing a powerful stunning photo book, Bear Me Into Freedom: The Talbot County of Frederick Douglass. The book depicts the places abolitionist, freedom fighter, and statesman Frederick Douglass lived in Talbot County, Maryland, for 11 of the first 20 years of his life.  

Douglass wrote extensively about his life in Talbot County in his three autobiographies, and his detailed experiences “became the foundation of the most powerful slave narrative in American literature.”

As discussed in a recent review, The book’s title derives from the time Douglass spent on the farm of sadistic slave owner Edward Covey at age 15 where he wrote: “I will take to the water. The very bay shall yet bear me into freedom.”

“Frederick Douglass cannot be fully understood without a visual representation that accompanies the written,” McGuiness writes about the 250-page collection of his own photographs and contextual descriptions. The book is the “the first attempt to marry imagery with Douglass’s words to picture what Talbot County may have looked like when Frederick Douglass lived there two centuries ago.”

The purpose of the book “is to place the events Douglass describes so searingly into a visual context, so that the reader can appreciate the physical environment that gave rise to his literature and oratory, which remain vibrant parts of America’s discussion of race.” 

Many accomplished leaders spend time after their primary careers giving back. In this book, five years in the making, Jeff has added an important chapter to our nation’s awareness of life of one of its most famous freedom fighters.