Frederick Douglass

Frederick Douglass (c. 1818–1895) was born into slavery on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, taught himself to read, and escaped to the North in 1838. His Narrative (1845) made him the best-known Black abolitionist speaker and writer in America and Britain; he founded and edited the newspaper The North Star in Rochester, New York, advised Lincoln during the Civil War, and later held federal office, including as minister to Haiti. He wrote two further autobiographies, My Bondage and My Freedom (1855) and Life and Times (1881).