Frederick Douglass was born into slavery in Talbot County, Maryland, around February 1818; his exact birth date is uncertain. In September 1838 he escaped by train from Baltimore, reaching New York in less than a day, and became a national leader of the movement to abolish slavery, known for his speeches and writing.
His Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave (1845) became a bestseller. He later wrote My Bondage and My Freedom (1855) and Life and Times of Frederick Douglass (1881, revised 1892), and founded the weekly paper The North Star. He died in Washington, D.C., on 20 February 1895.