This dramatic autobiography of the early life of an American slave was first published in 1845, when its young author had just achieved his freedom. Douglass' eloquence gives a clear indication of the powerful principles that led him to become the first great African-American leader in the United States. The personal account of a fugitive slave's privation and sufferings and his campaigns for Negro emancipation. This dramatic autobiography of the...

"In 1848, a year of international democratic revolt, a young, enslaved couple, Ellen and William Craft, achieved one of the boldest feats of self-emancipation in American history. Posing as master and slave, while sustained by their love as husband and wife, they made their escape together across more than 1,000 miles, riding out in the open on steamboats, carriages, and trains that took them from bondage in Georgia to the free states of the North....

"William Still was one of the main leaders of the Underground Railroad. Based in Philadelphia, Still built a reputation as a courageous abolitionist, writer, philanthropist, and guide for fugitive slaves. Throughout the 1840s and 1850s, Still assisted the Railroad and helped nearly a thousand slaves escape from the South to the North and Canada. Still worked personally with Harriet Tubman, assisted the family of John Brown and helped Brown's associates...