Frederick Douglass

Frederick Douglass 
(February 14, 1817 - February 20, 1895)
American abolitionist, journalist, and orator, often referred to as the "father" of the modern civil rights movement.

Douglass was born a slave in Tuckahoe, Maryland, and spent his adolescence as a houseboy in Baltimore. He escaped to New Bedford, Massachussetts in 1836. In 1841 he began a career as an abolitionist after giving a rousing, impromptu speech at an antislavery convention in Nantucket, Massachussetts.