Description: Enter the world of a slave, with all the pathos, brutal honesty, and striving of the heart to breathe free.Frederick Douglass was born in slavery in Talbot County, Maryland. During service to masters cruel and kind, he nevertheless learned to read and write. After suffering whippings, hunger, heat, cold, and grueling labor, he escaped from slavery in 1838. In 1841 he addressed an Anti-Slavery Society convention and spoke so eloquently that they immediately employed him as an agent. He was such an impressive orator, numerous persons doubted if he had ever been a slave. In response, he wrote this, his first autobiography.
Brief description:
Frederick Douglass (1818-1895), ne Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey, was born into slavery in Maryland. Upon successfully escaping slavery--on his third attempt--in 1838, Douglass became one of the key leaders of the abolitionist movement in the United States. An extremely gifted orator, Douglass repeatedly risked his own freedom as an antislavery speaker, writer, and statesman. A firm believer in equality for all people, including Native Americans, women, and immigrants, Douglass was also an activist in the women's suffrage movement. He died in Washington DC, shortly after he attended a meeting of the National Council of Women, where he'd received a standing ovation for his enormous contribution to human rights.