Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
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You have seen how a man was made a slave; you shall see how a slave was made a man.
Born into slavery during the early nineteenth century, Frederick Douglass escaped to freedom before he was twenty-one years old. From the moment he arrived in New York City, he felt a need to tell his story, one that mirrored so many people still enslaved in the South with no hope of escape.
As an orator and preacher, Douglass was an abolitionist, supporter of women’s suffrage and staunch defender of equality for all. In his first autobiographical work, published in 1845, The Narrative of Frederick Douglass describes how he went from slave to a free man.
Frederick Douglass
Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey (Frederick Douglass) was born a slave in Talbot County, Maryland. He took the name Douglass after escaping from the South in 1838.
As a leader in the abolitionist movement, Douglass was famed for his eloquent yet incisive political writing. And, like his near-contemporary, Booker T. Washington, understood the central importance of education in improving the lives of African Americans, and was therefore an early proponent of desegregation.
A firm believer in equal rights for all, Douglass attended a meeting of the National Council of Women in Washington, D.C., in the hours before his death in February 1895.
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