Frederick Douglass

Slave and Citizen; the Life of Frederick Douglass

In the biography of Frederick Douglass written by Nathan Irvin Huggins, covers the life of a magnificent man who lived his life as a slave, only to flee for his freedom to be a foremost advocate against slavery. Douglass was a black leader in the time of hostilities towards his race and became the foremost leaders of the abolitionist movement. He fought to end slavery within the United States in the decades prior to the Civil War and even harder after. He was also a great writer, husband and father to four children.

A brilliant speaker and self-educated, Douglass was asked by an abolitionist group the American Anti-Slavery Society to tour and give lectures of his accounts as a slave. He would tour and make speeches with a good friend of his William Lloyd Garrison. Garrison was also the editor and writer for the Liberator, an abolitionist paper written to inform the public of the injustices to slaves calling for their freedom.

Frederick Douglas became recognized as one of America's first great black speakers. He achieved world fame when his autobiography was publicized in 1845. This was the first of three autobiographies he wrote. Each biography went more into detail of his accounts as a slave and a free man. The first was written while still a slave. In fear of his capture the information given was not as forth coming as his later writings.

Two years later he began publishing an antislavery paper called the North Star, and after 13 years of publication he changed the name to the Frederick Douglass' Paper.

Many of Douglass's would be friends where against him writing and editing his own paper. When he began writing the North Star, the abolitionist or "Garrisonians" felt he was going against what they believed in. William Lloyd Garrison himself was outraged and dismissed Douglass as being