Role of a Lifetime

His story "is entirely apocryphal," says a historian who knows Douglas and has researched his claim. The historian spoke on condition of anonymity because this historian may have future contacts with Douglas.

"He's giving himself a job. I think he may actually believe he's a descendant of Frederick Douglass and in fact he might be. But as I said, we have never had sufficient evidence to verify that he is."

Says Lamar T. Wilson, former curator at the Banneker-Douglass Museum in Annapolis:

"I just want him to come clean, if he's not. He can still continue as a businessman and do the reenactments."

Whose History Is It?

Nettie Washington Douglass is a documented great-great-granddaughter of Frederick Douglass. She also happens to be a great-granddaughter of Booker T. Washington, another iconic black leader.

Like Douglas, Washington Douglass frequents historic events related to Frederick Douglass. At one such event in Baltimore in 1987, a stranger approached to tell her that they were related. It was Douglas. But when she asked precisely how he was related, Douglas said they would talk about it later, Washington Douglass says.

When they next spoke, several years later, Washington Douglass inquired again. This time, Douglas responded in writing.

"I want to be very clear that I am not seeking your approval or validation of my lineage to our famed ancestor, Frederick Douglass," Douglas wrote to her in 2001. Washington Douglass shared the letter with The Washington Post. In it, Douglas detailed his lineage.

"My grandfather, Charles Douglass, was the son of Frederick Jr.," he wrote.

And, indeed, Frederick Douglass Jr. (1842-1892) did have a son named Charles: Charles Paul Douglass, a troubled child prone to running away from home. He died in 1895 at the age of 16 after a long illness. He left no children behind. He could not have been Douglas's ancestor.

To Washington Douglass, that 2001 letter was proof that Douglas was not related. Angrily, she began referring to him as "the fake IV."

"I never responded to the letter," she says. Later, when she learned of his barbecue sauce, she was "so livid I cannot find the words. . . . A relative of Frederick Douglass would not do this."

A New Explanation

During a June interview with Douglas, when a reporter pointed to Charles Paul Douglass on the Douglass family tree, Douglas said "yes" when asked if that was his grandfather.

Told of Charles Paul's early death and absence of heirs, Douglas seemed confused and insisted his grandfather, Charles, did not die in 1895.

Pressed further, he added, "Well, I'm giving you the story as it was related to me."

His father, he said, had told him the family was descended from Frederick Douglass.

"So basically your father told you the story of being descended?" he was asked.

"Yes, as told by my grandfather, Charles Douglass."

After a long discussion about his forebears, he abruptly offered a new explanation: That the grandfather he was talking about was named Charles Anthony, not Charles Paul.

But there is no Charles Anthony among Frederick Douglass' grandchildren.

Douglas refused to discuss the matter further, cutting the interview off. He said, "I'd like to take the information and look at it and respond to it." Since that day, he has declined to be interviewed. Several days later, his response came by letter, with this claim: His grandfather, Charles A. Douglas, who died in 1947, was the illegitimate son of Frederick Douglass Jr.

"I am the great-great-grandson of Frederick Douglass through the first-born son of Frederick Jr., Charles A. Douglass, who was born out of wedlock in 1877," Douglas wrote to The Washington Post. "I had hoped that I could continue my work without having to delve into the infidelities that my great-grandfather, Frederick Jr., was involved in and that ultimately led to my being born bearing the name Frederick Douglass. My family has kept this information in the dark and has not previously divulged this information because I did not feel that it was relevant [to] air our family laundry publicly."

And he complained: "I am forced to bring this out."

Historians who specialize in Frederick Douglass say they have never heard of an illegitimate grandson. Douglas has provided no proof.

Was Charles A. Douglas of Meadville the son of Frederick Douglass Jr.?

U.S. Census records suggest not. Charles A. Douglas told census takers that his father was born in Maryland, according to the census of 1910, 1920 and 1930. But Frederick Douglass Jr. was born in Massachusetts, where his father and mother had settled in 1838 after fleeing Maryland.

"Basically what he's doing is he's defaming the family . . . by coming up with this story about Frederick Jr.," says Kenneth B. Morris Jr., Nettie Washington Douglass's son.

Meadville Recollections

Frederick I. Douglas Sr. is a charming, garrulous man of 95 who still lives in Meadville, a town of about 13,500 about 30 miles south of Erie. He is as stooped as his age might suggest. But he still drives a car, and he still works at part-time odd jobs around town. A vacuum cleaner and a lawn edger on his enclosed front porch one June day attest to his neighborhood vocation as a Mr. Fixit. And the black lawn jockey standing jauntily in his living room is a reminder, he says, to never forget the bad old days of racism.

He agreed to talk to a reporter, whom he invited into his home. Repeatedly in the course of an hour-long interview and a second short interview the next day (on his front steps as he weeded his yard), he says he knew nothing about being descended from the great Frederick Douglass. It was not something he heard from his own father, Charles A. Douglas, he says. And it wasn't a family story he had passed down to his son. Rather, his son researched it, he says, and passed the story up to him.

The son later complained in a letter to The Washington Post about a reporter approaching his father and wrote that his father had decided to give "misinformation" and to "humor" the reporter.

The Douglases of Meadville are well-known enough to occupy several folders in the Crawford County Historical Society, though nothing in those folders mentions the famous Frederick Douglass.

In the 1910 census, Charles A. Douglas is listed as a "messenger" for a "congressman." Charles was both messenger and butler for Rep. Arthur Laban Bates, and his son says he sometimes went to work with his dad. His mother, Margaret Douglas, worked as a domestic, doing laundry and cooking for white families, he says.

Later, Charles A. Douglas became a barber as well as founder of a social club and restaurant and started a regional Negro baseball team, says Douglas Sr., who recalled the name: the Sure Taps.

Growing up, his family lived alongside other black families on Sidler Alley, a narrow byway wedged between the streets populated by whites. From there, the family could see cross burnings of the Ku Klux Klan on a hilltop in the distance, he remembers. In the 1930s, his parents sent him off to Howard University.

His mother had hoped he'd become a lawyer. But his future took a detour when he had to leave school after his mother's death, he says.

"All she ever talked about, she wanted me to be a lawyer, because she worked for lawyers," Douglas Sr. says. "She wanted me to be somebody, see. But I didn't make it."

He went to work at the local Talon zipper factory and also became a contractor. He married Sallie Warren, who late in life, after their three children were grown, went to college and got her degree.

Through all his long years, Douglas Sr. never heard of the family being descended from Frederick Douglass, he says.

When people in Meadville learned that Douglas Jr. was claiming the Douglases were connected to Frederick Douglass, they peppered Douglas Sr. with questions.

They'd say: "'If he knows all this, how come you didn't know it?'"

"I'd just tell them to ask him, see, and I told Freddie about it -- 'They questioned me.' So he sent me a lot of information to read." It was historical information about Frederick Douglass.

The father was clearly trying to not contradict his son. He was clearly trying not to be critical.

Rather, he was simply telling what he did not know about the family's supposed connection to Frederick Douglass.

"To tell you the truth, I know nothing about it because I didn't research it and my dad didn't tell me anything about it 'cause my dad -- back in those days, you were busy trying to put food on the table, get your kids through school, see.

"So to tell you the truth, all I can tell you is I hope he's right."

Staff researchers Karl Evanzz and Magda Jean-Louis contributed to this report.