Frederick Douglass and a Valentine

It is unknown exactly when Frederick Douglass was born in Talbot County, Maryland. He was, after all, a slave at the time, and record-keeping was hardly a priority. He knew little about his own family or, as he put it, "The reader must not expect me to say much of my family. Genealogical trees did not flourish among slaves."

As for his birth date, he wrote, "From certain events... I suppose myself to have been born in February, 1817." Others suggested February 1818 (the more likely year). Douglass adopted February 14 as his birthday in honor of a visit from his mother in 1825 when she gave him a heart-shaped ginger cake and called him "Valentine." He never saw her again.

Despite a law against doing so, Douglass was taught the alphabet at 12 years old. Around the same time, he began to recognize his own concern for civil rights. At about 20 years old, he escaped from slavery, traveling to Delaware, Philadelphia, and New York in less than 24 hours. He went on to tell his story as an advocate for abolitionism and in several autobiographies. His first, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, was published in 1845. The compelling story was an instant success, going through multiple editions in only a few years. He published My Bondage and My Freedom in 1855 and Life and Times of Frederick Douglass in 1892.