[2][3] According to Visualising Slavery: Art Across the African Diaspora, it was the first statue in the United States that memorialized a specific African-American person.

/ WHERE THE CONDITIONS FOR / EFFECTING GREAT CHANGES / IN THE SETTLED ORDER OF / THINGS, FOR THE DEVELOPMENT / OF RIGHT IDEAS OF LIBERTY / AND HUMANITY ARE MORE / FAVORABLE THAN HERE IN / THESE UNITED STATES."

[1] Another on the opposite side reads: "MEN DO NOT LIVE BY BREAD/ALONE; SO WITH NATIONS, THEY / ARE NOT SAVED BY ART, BUT BY / HONESTY; NOT BY THE GILDED / SPLENDORS OF WEALTH BUT BY / THE HIDDEN TREASURE OF / MANLY VIRTUE; NOT BY THE / MULTITUDINOUS GRATIFICATION / OF THE FLESH, BUT BY / THE CELESTIAL GUIDANCE / OF THE SPIRIT."

[3] The Eureka Lodge formed a committee to create a monument for the African-American soldiers and sailors who perished in the Civil War, but received little support.

Douglass replied in a supportive letter dated December 3, 1894: "I shall be proud to live to see the proposed monument erected in the city of Rochester, where the best years of my life were spent in the service of our people—and which to this day seems like my home.

On December 22, a meeting held in the offices of state legislator Charles S. Baker decided to erect a shaft for the black war dead topped with a statue of Douglass.

[12]: 40  Once funds were collected, sculptor Stanley Edwards began creating an 8-foot bronze statue, using Charles Remond Douglass, Frederick's son, as a model.

It is fitting that it should stand near a great portal of our city, where thousands who enter may see that she is willing to acknowledge to the world that her most illustrious citizen was not a white man.

[13] In 1941, the city decided to relocate the statue from the congested corner of St. Paul Street and Central Avenue to a quiet location overlooking the natural amphitheater at Highland Park.

Julius D. Jackson, Jr of Trinity Emmanuel Presbyterian Church had begun advocating to move the statue for a visible location almost ten years earlier.

A time capsule was found beneath the base of the statue in the process, but the contents, which seemed to be newspapers and books, were too badly damaged to be salvaged.

[14] The move was originally supposed to be completed for the bicentennial celebration in 2018, but was delayed due to issues with state funding and contract approval.

"[16] The project leader stated, "We wanted to take the legend of Frederick Douglass off the pedestal and bring it to the streets of Rochester where he walked.

[15] The statues were placed in locations important to Douglass's legacy:[15][17] Shortly after installation, two students from St. John Fisher College were arrested for severe damage to the replica at the site of the Seward School.

One of the students stated, "Me and my friend were extremely drunk, and for some reason thought it was a good idea to try and take a statue.

[19] Carvin Eison, project director of Re-Energize the Legacy of Frederick Douglass Committee in Rochester, stated that it would be replaced with another replica in storage.

[20] Ten days later, it was replaced with the spontaneous help of the two men who had vandalized the Seward School site two years before as their way of taking "a step in the right direction.