My Bondage and My Freedom

FREDERICK DOUGLASS was one of the foremost leaders of the abolitionist movement, which fought to end slavery within the United States in the decades prior to the Civil War. When the American Anti-Slavery Society engaged him on a tour of lectures, he became one of America's first great black speakers. He won world fame with his first autobiography, NARRATIVE OF THE LIFE OF FREDERICK DOUGLAS (1845). Two years later he began publishing an antislavery paper called the North Star. Douglass served as an adviser to President Lincoln during the Civil War and fought for the adoption of constitutional amendments that guaranteed voting rights and other civil liberties for blacks. He is still revered today for his fight against racial injustice.