Frederick Douglass (1818-1895) was born Frederick Bailey in eastern Maryland, the son of an enslaved mother and an unknown white man. In 1838 he escaped to the North and took the name Douglass. During the next decade he became an antislavery lecturer, achieved international fame with Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, the first of his three autobiographies, and began publishing a series of newspapers. By 1861 he had become one of the most famous orators in the United States. Douglass continued his impassioned advocacy for freedom and racial equality until the end of his life.

David W. Blight is Sterling Professor of American History at Yale University and the author of Frederick Douglass: Prophet of American Freedom, which was awarded the Bancroft Prize, the Francis Parkman Prize, and the Pulitzer Prize. His other works include Frederick Douglass' Civil War: Keeping Faith in Jubilee and Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory. Professor Blight has written for The Atlantic, The New York Times, The New York Review of Books, and The Washington Post.