Distinguished Colored Men. This widely distributed lithograph from 1883 shows Frederick Douglass as the most prominent leader of his race. (Courtesy of the Library of Congress, LC-DIG-pga-02252)

Fard and Auld's Shipyard. Oil painting by Thomas Hare, ca. 1854. This shipyard was partly owned by Hugh Auld. (Courtesy of the Maryland Historical Society)

Frederick Douglass in later years. (Courtesy National Park Service, Museum Management Program and Frederick Douglass National Historic Site)

Anna Murray Douglass. (Courtesy National Park Service, Museum Management Program and Frederick Douglass National Historic Site, FRDO246)

Charles Douglass. (Courtesy National Park Service, Museum Management Program and Frederick Douglass National Historic Site, FRDO3908)

Rosetta Douglass Sprague. (Courtesy National Park Service, Museum Management Program and Frederick Douglass National Historic Site, FRDO4812)

Frederick Douglass Jr. (Courtesy National Park Service, Museum Management Program and Frederick Douglass National Historic Site, FRDO4954)

Lewis and Amelia Douglass. (Courtesy National Park Service, Museum Management Program and Frederick Douglass National Historic Site, FRDO4552)

Douglass's A Street House, Washington, D.C. (Courtesy National Park Service, Museum Management Program and Frederick Douglass National Historic Site, FRDO11001)

Frederick and Helen Pitts Douglass (standing), and Helen's sister Eva Pitts. (Courtesy National Park Service, Museum Management Program and Frederick Douglass National Historic Site, FRDO3912)

Douglass in Haiti. (Courtesy National Park Service, Museum Management Program and Frederick Douglass National Historic Site, FRDO3899)

Douglass in his study at Cedar Hill. (Courtesy National Park Service, Museum Management Program and Frederick Douglass National Historic Site, FRDO3886)

Today a National Park Service site, Cedar Hill is visited by thousands each year. (Courtesy National Park Service, Museum Management Program and Frederick Douglass National Historic Site)

This mural is on the side of a building at the corner of 12th Street and Massachusetts Avenue, Northwest in Washington, D.C. (Library of Congress)

Douglass at the end of the Civil War era. (Library of Congress)

African Americans pay homage to Douglass upon his appointment as marshal for the District of Columbia in 1877. (Library of Congress)

This mural depicting Douglass's appeal to Lincoln on behalf of African American troops is at the D.C. Recorder of Deeds office. It was painted by William Edouard Scott. (Library of Congress)

The fugitive Douglass is depicted on this sheet music from 1845. (Library of Congress)

Douglass and radical abolitionist John Brown were often depicted together. (Library of Congress)

Color lithographs depicting black achievement in the post Civil War era gave Douglass a prominent placement. Notice John Brown on the lower edge of the image. (Library of Congress)

Many cities held celebrations for the ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment in 1870. (Library of Congress)

Although Douglass never held elective office, his prominence as a black leader is notable in this lithographic tribute. (Library of Congress)

Douglass's death was commemorated in a number of ways, including sheet music of his funeral march. (Frederick Douglass Papers, Library of Congress)

Douglass's early mentor in the antislavery movement was William Lloyd Garrison. (Library of Congress)

This document endorsed by Abraham Lincoln and others allowed Douglass to travel unmolested across the South during the Civil War, but he most wanted an officer's commission. (Frederick Douglass Papers, Library of Congress)

In this letter Douglass celebrates the seventieth birthday of women's rights activist Elizabeth Cady Stanton. (Frederick Douglass Papers, Library of Congress)

Douglass created this broadside to encourage northern African American men to enlist in the Union Army. In early 1863 he acted as a recruiter for the 54th Massachusetts, the first black regiment raised in the North. (Courtesy of the Library of Congress, Alfred Whital Stern Collection of Lincolniana, lprbscsm scsm0556)