Frederick Douglass

Frederick Douglass was an American abolitionist, writer and statesman who escaped slavery in Maryland in 1838 and became the most influential African American of the nineteenth century. His Narrative of 1845 made him famous on both sides of the Atlantic, and his newspaper and speeches drove the campaign against slavery. During the Civil War he urged the enlistment of Black soldiers, and afterwards he served as a federal official and minister to Haiti while campaigning for civil and women's rights.