Troublemaker
Frederick Douglass
Abolitionist. Speaker. Teacher.
Frederick Douglass escaped from slavery at the age of twenty. In his speeches and books, he became one of America’s foremost orators, teaching whites, blacks, and an entire nation about the injustice of slavery, while also fighting for equality for all people.
Some arm themselves with guns.
Some with knives.
Some with bombs.
Born into slavery, Frederick Douglass armed himself with something far more dangerous.
His masters whipped him for it.
They used a hickory stick to beat him over the head.
They starved him until he collapsed.
But none of those punishments stopped him from finding it—the greatest, most powerful weapon ever created:
The ability to read.
And the bravery to share his story.
At fourteen, Frederick Douglass began teaching—illegally showing slaves three times his age how to read and write.
By twenty, he’d escaped to New York, where he found an even larger audience.
In the end, the other side had power.
Frederick Douglass just had words.
They didn’t stand a chance.*
If there is no struggle, there is no progress.
—Frederick Douglass
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