About the Book: Who Was Frederick Douglass?
Born into slavery in Maryland in 1818, Frederick Douglass was determined to gain
freedom--and once he realized that knowledge was power, he secretly learned to
read and write to give himself an advantage. After escaping to the North in
1838, as a free man he gave powerful speeches about his experience as a slave.
He was so impressive that he became a friend of President Abraham Lincoln, as
well as one of the most famous abolitionists of the nineteenth century.