Frederick Douglass

Born into slavery and denied even the certainty of his own birthday, Frederick Douglass rose to become one of the most powerful voices of the 19th century. Through courage, literacy, escape, oratory, journalism, political action, and moral defiance, he challenged slavery, confronted presidents, defended Black citizenship, supported women's rights, and forced the United States to face the contradiction between its ideals of freedom and the reality of human bondage.