On September 3, 1838, American abolitionist, reformer, and great orator Frederick Douglass escaped from slavery

On September 3, 1838, American abolitionist, reformer, and great orator Frederick Douglass escaped from slavery. He described his escape in his bestselling memoir, published just 7 years later:

“It required no very vivid imagination to depict the most frightful scenes through which I should have to pass, in case I failed. The wretchedness of slavery, and the blessedness of freedom, were perpetually before me. It was life and death with me. But I remained firm, and, according to my resolution, on the third day of September, 1838, I left my chains, and succeeded in reaching New York without the slightest interruption of
any kind…It was a moment of the highest excitement I
ever experienced.”

Frederick Douglass as a younger man, J.C. Buttre, 1855

-Written by Anna Zemaitaitis, Communications and Design Officer