Today marks the 48th installment in a series of articles by HumanProgress.org titled Heroes of Progress. This bi-weekly column provides a short introduction to heroes who have made an extraordinary contribution to the well-being of humanity. You can find the 47th part of this series here.

This week our hero is Frederick Douglass – the abolitionist and social reformer, who is widely considered to be one of the foremost human rights leaders of the 19th century. As a former slave who became a consultant to the U.S. President Abraham Lincoln and, later, President Andrew Johnson, Douglass helped to convince both presidents of the necessity of equal rights for black Americans.

Douglass’s relentless advocacy for equality under the law helped to shift public opinion in the United States against slavery, and his influence in the creation and ratification of the “Reconstruction Amendments” (a series of constitutional amendments that ensured equal freedom and voting rights for black Americans) led to a better and more prosperous future for millions of people.

Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey (later changed to Douglass) was born a slave around 1818 in Talbot County, Maryland. As was common with slaves, the exact year and date of Douglass’s birth is unknown. Douglass later chose to celebrate his birthday on February 14th, based on his memory of his enslaved mother, who called him her “little valentine.” Douglass was separated from his mother when he was an infant and only saw her a few times before her death in 1825.

Until the age of 6, Douglass was raised by his grandmother, who was also a slave. In 1824, Douglass was moved to a plantation where Aaron Anthony, a white man whom Douglass suspected might be his father, worked as an overseer. Throughout his early life, Douglass was transferred between many different plantations. After Anthony’s death in 1826, Douglass was given to Thomas Auld, who sent him to serve his brother, Hugh Auld, in Baltimore.

When Douglass was 12, Hugh Auld’s wife, Sophia, began teaching Douglass the alphabet. Sophia made sure that Douglass was properly fed, clothed and slept in a comfortable bed. However, over time, Hugh Auld was successful in convincing his wife that slaves should not be educated. Education, he thought, would encourage slaves to desire freedom. Before long, Douglas’s lessons stopped.

Despite that setback, Douglass continued to secretly teach himself how to read and write. He found a variety of newspapers, pamphlets, books and political materials that helped him with his education and development of personal views on freedom and human rights. A couple of years later, Douglass moved to another plantation. He began hosting a weekly Sunday school, where he taught other slaves basic literacy. The plantation owner did not mind Douglass’s Sunday school, but other plantation owners became increasingly agitated at the idea of slaves being educated. One Sunday, armed with clubs, the neighboring plantation owners burst in on the gathering and disbanded it.

In 1833, Douglass was sent to work for Edward Covey, a poor and brutal farmer with a reputation for harshly beating slaves. Covey would often beat Douglass. After the whippings became more intense, Douglass, aged just 16 at the time, fought back. Douglass won and Covey never attempted to beat him again. Douglass saw the fight as a life-changing event and he introduced the tale in his autobiography thusly “you have seen how a man was made a slave; you shall see how a slave was made a man.”

Later in 1833, Douglass was transferred to work in a shipyard in Baltimore. He attempted to escape from slavery in 1833 and 1836. In 1837, Douglass met and fell in lo