“If we must die, let it not be like hogs

Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot,

While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs,

Making their mock at our accursèd lot.

If we must die, O let us nobly die,

So that our precious blood may not be shed

In vain; then even the monsters we defy

Shall be constrained to honor us though dead!

O kinsmen! we must meet the common foe!

Though far outnumbered let us show us brave,

And for their thousand blows deal one death-blow!

What though before us lies the open grave?

Like men we’ll face the murderous, cowardly pack,

Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!

Oh, I wanna come near and give ya
Every part of me
But there is blood on my hands
And my lips aren't clean

In my darkness I remember
Momma's words reoccur to me
"Surrender to the good Lord
And he'll wipe your slate clean"

Take me to your river
I wanna go
Oh, go on
Take me to your river
I wanna know”

“Tip me in your smooth waters
I go in
As a man with many crimes
Come up for air
As my sins flow down the Jordan”

blood on the way to salvation… And I'll fight with the strength that I got until I die…So I'm gonna stand up…Take my people with me”. This song points out the feelings of slaves trying to make an escape. They know who they are and are willing to fight the system to be free. They understand that it's not going to be easy and they have a lot going against them but they are determined to be themselves. Altogether these artistries work to show the conflict between a man's identity and slavery. They show the importance of standing up and staying true to yourself and the struggles that arise with that. 

by William Ernest Henley

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate,
I am the captain of my soul.

I feel this relates to Frederick Douglass and his challenges through his life because time after time people have tried to break his soul, from being separated from his mother at such a young age to being beaten relentlessly by slave masters like Covey. "I thank whatever gods may be for my unconquerable soul" is a representation that nothing could ever hold down Douglass for long. In that period between getting beaten by Covey and Douglass fighting back against Covey's second beating attempt, Douglass was in a period of acceptance of his life, but it didn't last long as his soul wouldn't allow itself to be beat by someone, let alone broken, under the injustice and prejudice of slavery as projected through slave masters. "And yet the menace of the years finds and shall find me unafraid" can refer to how Douglass has only ever known slavery and how its aim is to induce fear into slaves to keep them obedient and afraid of what might come, but he stood fearless in the face of slavery and challenged its strength. Someone strong has a soul of something bigger than what can fit in a human body, and Douglass's fearless soul has had the potential to overpower the workings of slavery since the day he was born, and has continued to do so every day he spent on the earth. "I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul" reflects Emereson's Self Reliance principles of how you can only rely on yourself, and how Douglass didn't need help from the Underground Railroad or any other resource other than his will and his brain to escape slavery. Having those resources innate, he was always in control of whether or not he escaped or succumbed so slavery, but the right time lay fixed in the timeline for Douglass to learn what he needed to learn in order to successfully pull himself out of slavery. 

-

"Mercury" - Sleeping at Last https://open.spotify.com/track/3CZY55b05f682apPncuNHY?si=2f252be6f7c14d7f
A few lines from this song I feel also can represent Douglass and his life. 
"I watch for signals, for a clue
How to feel different, how to feel new
Like science fiction bending truth
No one can unring this bell
Unsound this alarm, unbreak my heart new"
This section of the verse can be interpreted as when Douglass learned how to read and found a new perspective regarding his state as a slave, he found a new determination to escape that could never be lost (p30: My determination to run away was again revived...WHen that came, I was determined to be off.")
"That somehow, all of this mess
Is just my attempt to know the 
worth of my life"
This applies to Douglass in the sense that he created a mess trying to escape and find his worth in the world outside of being a slave since he knew he had one. His entire band of fellow escapees and him were all caught on their first escape attempt, but to them and to most slaves, to know the worth of their life on their own and not attached to a white person or the title of "slave", the mess they create is most likely worth it. 

out the window you wonder where you are. Is this Calgary? You ask, Calgary is the one page you retain. Calgary Stampede, cowboy town, Lake Louise, ice skating, big bands. 

This is the only place In the heavy fog.”

We learn in the very beginning that Fredrick Douglass does not know much about himself. He does not know his age nor who his actual father is and seems to be somewhat blinded from aspects of his own life. The poem seems to connect with this in a somewhat far fetched way but is similar and can be connected to him. The poem is clearly talking about having Alzheimer’s and what it’s like to have to live with it but, isn’t this description somewhat similar to what Douglass had to go through? While it is a disease that affects the brain's ability to remember and recall aspects of their lives isn’t that close to what he went through. His owners kept that information from him leaving him to only guess the seemingly simple information we can gather and understand about ourselves.  

The picture above shows a person, someone that we don’t actually know much about, whether or not she’s a real person or certain aspects about herself. She has a second face which could represent her having maybe a second identity, one that is not known simply from the picture. The unknowns lead to questioning and trying to create an identity for her which is basically what Fredrick Douglass had to do. He had to build an identity that did not include parts of his backstory. He guessed on a lot of things to satisfy himself, to allow him to be comfortable with what he knows and not constantly searching for the unknown.

“Slaves sing most when they are unhappy. The songs of the slave represent the sorrows of his heart; he is relieved by them, only as an aching heart is relieved by its tears" (pg. 15)

… I'm sometimes up, and I'm sometimes down
Comin' for to carry me home
But but I know my soul is heavenly bound
Comin' for to carry me home”

The painting connects to Douglass’s message of American Christianity’s exclusion of Black people, and the dissonance of the message preached and the actions.

The song, a popular Black Christian hymn and slave song tells a story of salvation. Some believe it to be a call to abolitionists to come and end slavery. Looking specially at the bolded lines, I believe the lyrics can be connected to the fluctuation of Douglass’s motivation: how he was sometimes ready to give up, but a desire to keep going towards better things kept him moving.

This picture by Josiah Wedgwood really depicts similarity to how Douglass was portraying the church to be in the body of his book. He shows the church to be non equal to race and against African Americans. It shows how they are not treated as man and brother as god would consider life to be. Douglass portrays the church and religion to be against slaves and as a bad thing through examples of the worst slaveholders such as Covey being the most religious. The song that I have linked by Louis Armstrong is on the contrary of this, just like Douglass’s Appendix where he explains that there is a difference in religion vs the religion of a slave holder. This song is the slaves singing to God to free them just as Moses freed his people from the Egyptian tyrant as a way of showing that they believe in god and god being their savior, yet the god the slaveholders believe in is the god of slaveholding and so the point of this is to show that god is good and not the enemy whereas the people are and do the ungodly acts just as Sunday Adelaja writes in her phrase that people shouldn’t be in control of you, god is the one person that can get you through and should be in control. Do you find religion to be against the freedom of slaves or is it just the people that cause things like this to happen?

This song “change is going to come” by Sam Cook (1964) exposes the struggles that African Americans had during the time of the civil rights movement. I also believe this song also has a connection back to slavery and the life of douglass. In this song Cook shows that change will come with hope and time. The part in the song when he says “Back down on my knees Lor’, there been times that I thought I couldn't last for long, but now I think I'm able to carry on”, can really connect to Douglass's story. There were times where he was giving up and lost his spirit but he always kept faith in him which would eventually bring him back up. Throughout the narrative he brought up hope many times, such as in chapter seven he says “consoled myself with the hope that I should one day find a good chance”. Douglass's struggles were huge but his drive and spirit led him to being a free man. He never let down any opportunity and knew that change would come with these opportunities and his hope. One other aspect about the song is the emotion that is put into it. It is not necessarily sad, but sang in a way that furthers the sense of hope for the future. 

Choumali’s embroidered photographs in her “CA VA ALLER’ collection weaves together emotion, memories, collage, and most importantly: hope. The raw photos were taken on her iPhone in Bassam, a beach resort in Africa that was sadly attacked by three Islamist gunmen in 2016. Choumali had childhood memories in the town, and was forever affected by the violent attack, hence her art. Her use of embroidery was “a way of channeling hope and resilience” in the weary times. The collection connects to Frederick Douglass in that he felt his passion of reading and writing, freedom, and just the belief of escaping slavery was like an angel in the darkness, resembling hope. CA VA ALLER means “it will be okay,” commonly said in Bassam in place of talking about mental health due to superstitions. Choumali provides her artwork to be that angel after the attacks for those in despair as well as herself. Along with the artwork, the song Swing Low provided hope, especially in the lyrics of “a band of angels coming after me, coming to carry me home,” which yet again radiates hope for those stuck in slavery back then. Douglass hyperfixated on that hope, which in return, led him to accomplish freedom.