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Did you know that February is African-American History Month in the United States? One of
the most famous American figures in the anti-slavery movement of the 1800s was Frederick Douglass.
He was born in February 1818 to a slave woman in Maryland. His owner forbade him to learn
how to read, but Douglass secretly taught himself to both read and write. He fled slavery
when he was 20 years old, traveling to the free northern states. Once there, he changed
his last name to Douglass, a name he found in a poem by Sir Walter Scott. Between 1841
and 1847, Douglass became prominent in the abolitionist movement. He traveled throughout
the American East and Midwest, giving lectures about slavery. He eventually became a newspaper
publisher and author, and after moving to Washington, DC, he was hired as a U.S. Marshal
and Recorder of Deeds, both government positions. Douglass was appointed consul-general to Haiti
in the late 1800s and died in 1895. His writings and his legacy inspire millions of children
in the United States today. The history of African-Americans is indelibly tied to the
sad history of slavery, making many people unaware of the amazing contributions of African-Americans
to United States culture. One of the most important social and cultural movements in
the United States, for example, was the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s and 1930s.
The Harlem Renaissance is considered the first important movement of black artists and writers
in the U.S. Based in a New York City neighborhood called Harlem, this movement followed what's
known as "the Great Migration," when thousands of African-Americans left the southern United
States and moved to northern cities such as New York, Chicago, and Washington, DC. The
Harlem Renaissance was an era of amazing creativity in black music, literature, and arts. It is
credited with bringing African-American culture into the mainstream and gaining notice by
white audiences. Influential black writers such as Zora Neale Hurston, W.E.B. DuBois
and Langston Hughes gained critical notice during this time. World-famous musicians such
as Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington and Billie Holiday rose to prominence.
And artists such as William Johnson, Paul Heath and Prentiss Taylor gained fame. The
work of these creative Americans along with dozens more from that era are respected, valued,
and taught in America to this day.