Born Frederick Baily, Frederick Douglass was a slave, his birthday is not pin pointed but known to be in February of 1818. He was born on Holmes Hill Farm, near the town of Easton, Maryland. Harriet Baily was Frederick's mother. She worked the cornfields surrounding Holmes Hill. As a boy, he knew little of his father except that the man was white. As a child, he had heard rumors that the master, Aaron Anthony was his father. Frederick's mother was required to work long hours in the fields, so he lived with his grandmother, Betsey Baily. Betsy Baily lived in a cabin a short distance from Holmes Hill Farm. Her job was to look after Harriet's children until they were old enough to work. "Frederick's mother visited him when she could, but he had only a hazy memory of her." He did not think he was a slave during the years with his grandmother.

When Frederick was six he was put to work on the Lloyd Plantation. This was the last he saw of his g

By the end of the 1840's, Douglass was well on his way to becoming the most famous and respected black leader in the country. He was in great demand as a speaker and writer. He also believed that women's rights were important and he communicated with and stay friends with Susan B. Anthony and Lucretia Mott.

Douglass and Abraham Lincoln had a meeting in August 1864 to discuss the up coming elections and how to end the war. The president was doubting that the war could be won and all the slaves would remain. So Lincoln asked Douglass to draw up plans for leading slaves out of the South in the event that a Union victory seemed impossible. Douglass left the interview convinced that the president was a friend of blacks. The evacuation plan that Douglass sent to Lincoln never had to be used. For the Union won the war and Lincoln was re-elected. Lincoln was then assassinated shortly there after and Douglass mourned the loss of a friend and a great man to the black community.

As 1867 came Douglass was asked by President Johnson to take charge of the Freedman's Bureau. He dined this offer, for he did not want to be associated with this President after he dined blacks so many programs.

In August 1841 at an abolitionist meeting in New Bedford, Douglass saw William Lloyd Garrison, for the first time. A few days later Douglass spoke before a crowd attending the annual meeting of the Massachusetts branch of the American Anti-Slavery Society. Garrison saw Douglass's and thought he could be a speaker, so he hired him as agent for the society. His job was to talk about his life and to sell subscriptions to the Liberator and the Anti-Slavery Standard. "The paper became my meat and drink," Douglass said, For the next ten years Douglass was associated with Garrison and the antislavery movement.

He married again in 1884 to Helen Pitts who was 20 years younger than him. They remained together for 9 years, that was until his sudden death of a heart attack on February 20, 1895. He was 77. Frederick Douglass was laid to rest in Rochester, New York. All of the black public schools closed for the day that he died. Frederick Douglass was a man that touched the hearts of millions and spoke out when no one else would. He fought for the freedom of the black man and stride for the basic human rights they deserved. Frederick Douglass was truly a great man who cried out for freedom.

Douglass decided to support Abraham Lincoln in the 1860 election. Lincoln won and then South rebelled. The North was fighting to preserve the Union and the South was fighting for the right to have slaves. For Frederick Douglass and the abolitionists, the war was a battle to end slavery. Douglass continued to fight with his speeches and newspaper editorials, they continued to say, "the aim of the war must be to abolish slavery and that blacks must be allowed to join in the battle for their freedom." On the night of December 31, 1826, the president issued the Emancipation Proclamation. This was the wish that Douglass had sought and he was elated to see his fellow brother freed. Lincoln's act freed millions of blacks, who fled from their masters and took "freedom's road" to areas controlled by Union forces.

In 1874 Douglass also was appointed president of the Freedman's Savings and Trust Company. This bank was started to help blacks in financial trouble. The bank had loaned out an extremely large amount of money at a very low interest rate. This caused the bank to be losing money, Douglass applied for Federal help but that was dined and so he tried to bail the bank out with his own money. This was a large mistake because he lost all of his money when the bank folded. Eventually he made the money back by lecturing.

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