Lithograph, "Frederick Douglass, The Colored Champion of Freedom," 1872-1874

Frederick Douglass, abolitionist and reform journalist, is depicted in the early 1860s around the time that he advised President Lincoln regarding African Americans. Douglass became a leader in the anti-slavery movement when he spontaneously stood up and spoke at an abolitionist meeting in 1841. His gut-wrenching tales about life on the plantation in Maryland turned thousands of skeptical Americans into active abolitionists.