For years, researchers interested in the life of Frederick Douglass have traveled to a retired surgeon's dining room table in Savannah, Ga., to pore over his private collection of newspaper clippings, manuscripts and letters. Dr. Walter O. Evans' collection is the largest known on the abolitionist and politician who was formerly enslaved. It's one that Evans has been working on for decades.
"It consists of a great deal of personal material from the Douglass family — letters that he wrote to his sons and to various other people," Evans tells NPR.
