Born a slave, Frederick Douglass eventually became one of the most prominent and outspoken abolitionist leaders. His life as a public figure began almost by accident. He attended an anti-slavery convention where he was asked to speak. Douglass swallowed his nervousness and delivered an impressive attack against the institution that had held his mother and grandparents in bondage all their lives. His oratorical skill astonished his listeners, who urged him to make a career of it. The intelligence and powerful rhetoric of this young fugitive slave had given them an acute weapon against slavery.

 Douglass became a well-known speaker at other conventions. However, some people doubted that such a well-spoken man could ever have been a slave. In 1845, Douglass wrote the first of three autobiographies, his Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, to refute these doubts and to shock the American public with the truth about slavery. Douglass changed many of his readers' opinions about slavery. His Narrative also provided new inspiration for anti-slavery advocates, including Harriet Beecher Stowe, who used Douglass's Narrative as a source for her phenomenally successful anti-slavery novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin.