Douglass nodded his head. “She’s right. We’re hoping the next amendment will make women citizens. Remember me to her, won’t you?”
“We sure will, Mr. Douglass!”
Then they were gone and Douglass said, “Good sound Americans, Anna—people of the land.”
And Anna said a little wistfully, “We’ll miss them.” Deep in her heart, Anna was afraid of Washington.
The house Douglass had taken at 316 A Street, N.E., was not ready, but he wanted Anna close by to supervise repairs and redecorations. They took Lewis with them, leaving Rosetta and her husband in the Rochester home until everything was moved.
Douglass planned to send his twelve bound volumes of the North Star and Frederick Douglass’ Paper, covering the period from 1848 to 1860, to Harvard University Library. The curator had requested them for Harvard’s historical files. But first he had to dash off to New Orleans to preside over the Southern States Convention.
P. B. S. Pinchback, Lieutenant-Governor of Louisiana, had invited Douglass to be his guest at the Governor’s Mansion. Indistinguishable from a white man, Pinchback had been educated in the North and had served as a captain in the Union Army. In appearance and actions he was an educated, well-to-do, genial Louisianian—intelligent and capable, but he was a practical politician and he played the politician’s game. He might have left New Orleans, gone to France as so many of them did, or even to some other section of the country. He might easily have shrugged off the harness of the cordon bleu, but New Orleans was in his blood. He lived always on the sharp edge, dangerously, while around him swirled a colorful and kaleidoscopic drama. He was by no means a charlatan.
It was April when Douglass came to New Orleans. He was greeted most cordially. “I shall show you my New Orleans and you will not want to leave,” Pinchback promised.
And Douglass was captivated by New Orleans—captivated and blinded. Camellias were in bloom, their loveliness reflected in stagnant waters. Soft, trailing beauty of mosses on damp walls in which stood high, heavy gates. The streets were filled with multicolored throngs—whites and blacks and all the colors in between, old women with piercing bright eyes under flaming tignons, hawkers crying out their wares, extending great trays piled high with figs, brown cakes and steaming jars—the liquid French accents—the smells!
They stepped over the carcass of a dog, which had evidently been floating in the street gutter for some time. “This is the old section,” Pinchback explained. “When we cross Canal Street, you’ll think you’re in New York.”