Frederick Douglass

Born in slavery, Frederick Douglass escaped from bondage in 1838 and soon emerged as one of the nation's most powerful advocates for abolition. When his dignity of bearing and brilliance as an orator led some to question whether he had ever been a slave, Douglass risked recapture as a fugitive by recounting the full details of his biography in his Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (1845). After an extensive lecture tour in Britain, where supporters raised the funds to purchase his freedom, Douglass returned to the United States in 1847 and expanded his antislavery activism by launching the North Star newspaper. When the nation later descended into civil war, Douglass led the call to enlist black troops in the Union army, and in the years following the conflict, he continued to campaign vigorously for the rights of African Americans.