Born into slavery on a Maryland farm, Frederick Augustus Douglass (1817-1895) became the foremost African-American abolitionist in the United States and the first black citizen to hold high rank (as U.S. minister and consul general to Haiti) in the U.S. government.

At the age of 21, Douglass escaped to Massachusetts where he become a lecturer for the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society. In 1847, Douglass founded a newspaper, The North Star, whose masthead read: "Right is of no sex -- Truth is of no color -- God is the Father of us all, and we are all Brethren." During the Civil War, Douglass recruited black regiments for the North and spoke eloquently for black suffrage and civil rights.
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