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Born into Slavery in Tuckahoe, Maryland
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His mother died so he is sent to live with Hugh Auld and his wife Sophia. When he lived there he started to educate himself until Hugh Auld ended it. He said he would be more likely to rebel if he was educated.
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He makes an escape plan but is discovered, jailed, and then released. He goes back to live with Hugh and Sophia Auld and starts working in a shipyard.
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He fled from his master and went to New Bedford, Massachusetts. To avoid capture, he dropped his two middle names and changed his last name to Douglass
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He spoke at his first Massachusetts Antislavery Society meeting and told what freedom meant to him. This was the begging of many speeches and lectures to come. The people were so impressed they hired him to lecture about his experiences as a slave. He also protested against segregated seating on trains by sitting in cars reserved for whites. Douglass protested against religious discrimination. He walked out of a church that kept blacks from taking part in a service.
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He published his autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. He feared that his identity as a runaway slave would be revealed when the book was published, so he went to England. When he was there he continued to speak against slavery. He also found friends who raised money to buy his freedom.
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He moved to Rochester, New york and started a newspaper called the North Star. He said that employers hired white immigrants over black Americans. He accused even some abolitionist business executives of job discrimination against blacks.
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He also faught for the enlistment of african americans into the union armed forces. In public speeches and even in private meetings with President abraham lincoln, Douglass made his case forcefully. Aided by rising sentiment against slavery in the North, both of Douglass's goals became a reality.
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By the end of the war, nearly 200,000 African Americans had enlisted in the Union armed forces. Douglass personally helped to enlist men for the Fifty-fourth and Fifty-fifth Massachusetts Colored Regiments and served as a leading advocate for the equal treatment of African Americans in the military.
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President Grant named him assistant secretary to the Santo Domingo Commission. Other Republican presidents appointed him marshal and record of deeds for the district of colombia. In 1888, President benjamin harrison appointed Douglass minister resident and consul general to Haiti, the first free black republic in the Western Hemisphere.
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Died in Washington DC
