Portrait of Frederick Douglass, circa 1860

Frederick Douglass, abolitionist and reform journalist, is shown in this portrait about 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.