Who Was Frederick Douglass?

Born into slavery in Maryland in 1818,Frederick Douglass was determined to gain freedom–and once he realized that knowledge was powerhe secretly learned to read and write to give himself an advantage. After escaping to the North in 1838as a free man he gave powerful speeches about his experience as a slave. He was so impressive that he became a friend of President Abraham Lincolnas well as one of the most famous abolitionists of the nineteenth century.