Atlanta-based photographer, painter and writer, Lynn Marshall-Linnemeier, spoke recently as part of the Institute for Women’s Studies Friday Speaker lecture series on “The Secret Journal of Anna Murray Douglass,” the first wife of writer and orator Frederick Douglass. An excerpt:

“Instead of focusing exclusively on Frederick Douglass, I decided to shift the focus to his wife, Anna, and the women in his life as well as the stereotyping of African-American women. . .

“By focusing on Anna, I wanted to bestow some degree of agency upon her because it seemed that many scholars chose to focus on her illiteracy. Douglass stayed with Anna 44 years and (she) mothered five children from that union. She was the only woman who bore his children. Although Douglass had adulterous relationships later in their marriage, they started out a happy couple.

“In the mixed media piece, Between Two Freds, I decided to portray Anna symbolically as the Haitian Voodoo lord, Erzulie Danthor, a powerful spirit who was said to have inhabited the women who dance just before the Haitians attacked the French and drove them off the island of Espanola. . .

“I visited Haiti just before the coup in January 2004 and was overwhelmed by the beauty of the Haitian women. They were not only physically attractive, but they moved with a rhythm and grace that was alluring and very powerful. There was something about this spiritual presence, culled by centuries of struggle, that moved with them. These were black women who appeared to handle the hardships of life with determination and agility, yet their lives were affected by racial constructions that determined they were worthless.”