Bust of orator and author Frederick Douglass displayed in Massachusetts

It’s also the first bust to be added to the Senate Chamber in more than 125 years.

Senate President Karen Spilka emphasized the ties that Douglass—who lived for a time in the state and delivered speeches in the Senate chamber and at Boston’s Faneuil Hall—had to Massachusetts.

“Though he was not born here, in Massachusetts we like to call Frederick Douglass one of our own,” she said. “He came to our state after escaping enslavement. This is where he wanted to come.”

Douglass also first heard news of President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation while in Boston, she said.

With the bust, Douglass takes his place as a founding father in the chamber and offers some balance in a Statehouse which honors people who are predominantly white, leaving out the stories of countless people of color, Spilka said.

Noelle Trent, president of the Museum of African American History in Boston, also emphasized the connections Douglass had to the state.

“It is here where he would write his groundbreaking book the ‘Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave,’” she said. “It is here where he would begin his career as one of the most renowned orators of the 19th century.”

Senate leaders chose February 14 to unveil the bust. With the true date of his birth unknown, Douglass opted to celebrate February 14 as his birthday. A quote by Douglass – “Truth, justice, liberty, and humanity will ultimately prevail” – adorns one wall of the chamber.

Other states have recognized Douglass.

In 2020, Chicago renamed a sprawling park on the city’s West Side after Douglass and his wife, Anna Murray-Douglass. Earlier that year, county lawmakers voted to rename the airport in Rochester, New York, after…