Frederick Douglass

Rhoden’s Frederick Douglass is a maquette for the statue of Frederick Douglass installed at Lincoln University in Chester County, Pennsylvania. The public historically black university was founded in 1854 and named for President Abraham Lincoln in 1866, a year after his assassination. While this wasn’t the only time Rhoden sculpted Frederick Douglass, he was commissioned to do this statue of the 19th century abolitionist, author and public intellectual for the university in the late 1970s. This maquette is signed “Rhoden 79” at the base of the piece, and in it Douglass stands with his legs apart as if mid-stride, holding a piece of paper in his right hand and a metal shackle in his left hand. The final version of this statue was unveiled at Lincoln University in 1989 as part of the university’s homecoming. The event was covered in an article in the November 20, 1989 issue of Jet magazine, which described the statue as standing 10 feet six inches tall and weighing 1200 pounds.