How Douglass Learned From the Columbian Orator

Douglass was born in 1818 in Maryland. In 1826 he went to live with Hugh and Sophia, old in Baltimore. She tried to teach him to read the Bible but when her husband learned of this, he flew into a rage. It was dangerous and illegal to teach slaves to read. He later said that this was the first anti-slavery lecture he had ever had the privilege to hear.