Social Reformer, Human Rights Leader. He was a Black American, who was one of the most eminent human rights leaders of the 19th century. His oratorical and literary brilliance thrust him into the forefront of the United States abolition movement, and he became the first black citizen to hold a high rank in the United States government. Separated as an infant from his slave mother, he never knew his white father. Douglass lived with his grandmother on a Maryland plantation until the age of eight, when his owner sent him to Baltimore to live as a house servant with the family of Hugh Auld, whose wife defied state law by teaching him to read. Auld declared that learning would make him unfit for slavery, thus Douglass was forced to continue his education surreptitiously with the aid of schoolboys in the street. Upon the death of his master, he was returned to the plantation as a field hand at 16. Later he was hired out in Baltimore as a ship caulker. He tried to escape with three other slaves in 1833, but the plot was discovered before they could get away. On September 3, 1838, dressed in a sailor's uniform and carrying papers provided by a free black seaman, Douglass boarded a train bound for Havre de Grace, Maryland, escaping to New York City and then to New Bedford, Massachusetts, where he worked as a laborer for three years. Born Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey, he avoided runaway-slave hunters by changing his surname to Douglass. He helped to win many new friends for the Abolition Movement and to cement the bonds of humanitarian reform between North America and Europe. In 1847,Douglass returned from a speaking tour of Ireland and Great Britain with funds to purchase his freedom and also to start his own antislavery newspaper, the "North Star," which he published from 1847 to 1860 at Rochester, New York. During the American Civil War, two of his sons served in the 54th Massachusetts regiment, the first to be comprised of African-American soldiers. After the war in 1877 he became the editor of the "New National Era." He was ordained as a minister in the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church in 1833. During his life of enslavement, Douglass had several masters. In Douglass' 1845 autobiography, "Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave," he mentioned in details the time period that he was enslaved on one of former United States Senator Edward Lloyd's plantations and the cruelty committed by overseers along with Lloyd's indifference to the situation. In March of 1874 he was appointed president of the established Freedman's Savings and Trust Company, a bank chartered by Congress in 1865 to safeguard the savings of African American Civil War veterans and former slaves, but soon after occupying the position, he learned that the bank was weak in funding. After donating $10,000 to the bank's funding, he notified Congress of this serious problem. The bank failed in June 29, 1874, and with it vanished three million dollars belonging to 61,000 African Americans soldiers. In 1877, when President Rutherford Hayes appointed him the United States Marshal of the District of Columbia, Douglass became the first African American confirmed for a Presidential appointment by the United States Senate. In 1888, he became the first African-American to receive a vote for President of the United States in a major party's roll call at the Republican National Convention in Chicago. At the age of seventy-one, Douglass was appointed ambassador to the Republic of Haiti by the administration of United States President Benjamin Harrison.

Social Reformer, Human Rights Leader. He was a Black American, who was one of the most eminent human rights leaders of the 19th century. His oratorical and literary brilliance thrust him into the forefront of the United States abolition movement, and he became the first black citizen to hold a high rank in the United States government. Separated as an infant from his slave mother, he never knew his white father. Douglass lived with his grandmother on a Maryland plantation until the age of eight, when his owner sent him to Baltimore to live as a house servant with the family of Hugh Auld, whose wife defied state law by teaching him to read. Auld declared that learning would make him unfit for slavery, thus Douglass was forced to continue his education surreptitiously with the aid of schoolboys in the street. Upon the death of his master, he was returned to the plantation as a field hand at 16. Later he was hired out in Baltimore as a ship caulker. He tried to escape with three other slaves in 1833, but the plot was discovered before they could get away. On September 3, 1838, dressed in a sailor's uniform and carrying papers provided by a free black seaman, Douglass boarded a train bound for Havre de Grace, Maryland, escaping to New York City and then to New Bedford, Massachusetts, where he worked as a laborer for three years. Born Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey, he avoided runaway-slave hunters by changing his surname to Douglass. He helped to win many new friends for the Abolition Movement and to cement the bonds of humanitarian reform between North America and Europe. In 1847,Douglass returned from a speaking tour of Ireland and Great Britain with funds to purchase his freedom and also to start his own antislavery newspaper, the "North Star," which he published from 1847 to 1860 at Rochester, New York. During the American Civil War, two of his sons served in the 54th Massachusetts regiment, the first to be comprised of African-American soldiers. After the war in 1877 he became the editor of the "New National Era." He was ordained as a minister in the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church in 1833. During his life of enslavement, Douglass had several masters. In Douglass' 1845 autobiography, "Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave," he mentioned in details the time period that he was enslaved on one of former United States Senator Edward Lloyd's plantations and the cruelty committed by overseers along with Lloyd's indifference to the situation. In March of 1874 he was appointed president of the established Freedman's Savings and Trust Company, a bank chartered by Congress in 1865 to safeguard the savings of African American Civil War veterans and former slaves, but soon after occupying the position, he learned that the bank was weak in funding. After donating $10,000 to the bank's funding, he notified Congress of this serious problem. The bank failed in June 29, 1874, and with it vanished three million dollars belonging to 61,000 African Americans soldiers. In 1877, when President Rutherford Hayes appointed him the United States Marshal of the District of Columbia, Douglass became the first African American confirmed for a Presidential appointment by the United States Senate. In 1888, he became the first African-American to receive a vote for President of the United States in a major party's roll call at the Republican National Convention in Chicago. At the age of seventy-one, Douglass was appointed ambassador to the Republic of Haiti by the administration of United States President Benjamin Harrison.

Bio by: Linda Davis