1818–1895 · American abolitionist, orator, writer & statesman
Born into slavery in Maryland around 1818, Frederick Douglass escaped in 1838 and became the most influential Black abolitionist of the nineteenth century — a spellbinding orator, newspaper editor, and adviser to presidents. His 1845 Narrative was a bestselling autobiography that put a devastating first-person face on American slavery. He later expanded his life story in My Bondage and My Freedom (1855) and Life and Times of Frederick Douglass (1881).