February 14, [ a ] β February 20, was an American social reformer , abolitionist , orator, writer, and statesman. He became the most important leader of the movement for African-American civil rights in the 19th century. After escaping from slavery in Maryland in , Douglass became a national leader of the abolitionist movement in Massachusetts and New York and gained fame for his oratory [ 4 ] and incisive antislavery writings.
Accordingly, he was described by abolitionists in his time as a living counterexample to claims by supporters of slavery that enslaved people lacked the intellectual capacity to function as independent American citizens.
It was in response to this disbelief that Douglass wrote his first autobiography. Douglass wrote three autobiographies, describing his experiences as an enslaved person in his Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave , which became a bestseller and was influential in promoting the cause of abolition, as was his second book, My Bondage and My Freedom Following the Civil War , Douglass was an active campaigner for the rights of freed slaves and wrote his last autobiography, Life and Times of Frederick Douglass.
First published in and revised in , three years before his death, the book covers his life up to those dates. Douglass also actively supported women's suffrage , and he held several public offices. Without his knowledge or consent, Douglass became the first African American nominated for vice president of the United States, as the running mate of Victoria Woodhull on the Equal Rights Party ticket. Douglass believed in dialogue and in making alliances across racial and ideological divides, as well as, after breaking with William Lloyd Garrison , in the anti-slavery interpretation of the U.
The plantation was between Hillsboro and Cordova ; [ 10 ] his birthplace was likely his grandmother's cabin [ b ] east of Tappers Corner and west of Tuckahoe Creek. Preston determined that Douglass was born in February Douglass's enslaved mother was of African descent and his father, who may have been her master, apparently of European descent; [ 16 ] in his Narrative , Douglass wrote: "My father was a white man.
