Frederick Douglass Civil Rights Activist, Newspaper Editor, and Orator (1818–1895)
Heralded as one of the most significant civil rights activists of the nineteenth century, Frederick Douglass was born a slave in Talbot County, Maryland, on February 7, 1818. From the most humble of beginnings, Douglass rose to become a world-famous orator, newspaper editor, and champion of the rights of women and African Americans.
Known in his youth as Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey, Douglass spent his first twenty years in bondage, first on a plantation owned by Edward Lloyd IV and then in the shipbuilding city of Baltimore, Maryland. Although it was illegal for slaves to gain an education, Douglass learned to read and write with the aid of his master's wife and through his own ingenuity. During his time in Baltimore, he secured a copy of Caleb Bingham's Columbian Orator, a collection of speeches by famous orators and politicians. The experience gained from practicing these speeches led Douglass to develop a powerful oratorical style that later allowed him to hold...
