Frederick Douglass (born Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey; c. February 1818– February 20, 1895) was an American social reformer, abolitionist, orator, writer, and stateman.
After escaping from slavery in Maryland, he became a national leader of the abolitionist movement in Massachusetts and New York, gaining note for his oratory and incisive antislavery writings.
In his time, he was described by abolitionists as a living counter-example to slaveholders' arguments that slaves lacked the intellectual capacity to function as independent American citizens. Northerners at the time found it hard to believe that such a great orator had once been a slave.
Nirina Ralantoaritsimba, English teacher and writer of the novel Nous sommes les ancêtres de ceux qui ne sont pas encore nés, will talk about the life and fight of an African-American figurehaed of the abolitionsit movement.
