Frederick Douglass - Trivia, Family, Bio

Former slave who became an abolitionist author and speaker. He detailed his remarkable life in his famous 1845 autobiography: Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave.

Before Fame

He grew up in slavery in Maryland. While enslaved in Baltimore, he was taught by a plantation owner's wife to read and write. In 1838, he escaped slavery by impersonating a free sailor of African descent and traveling by train and steamboat to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Trivia

He once said, "I would unite with anybody to do right and with nobody to do wrong."

Family Life

He married his first wife, Anna Murray, in 1838. The couple had three sons and two daughters. Following Murray's death, Douglass married Helen Pitts, a white feminist twenty years his junior.

Associated With

He advised President Abraham Lincoln on how to treat black soldiers.

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