Frederick Douglass (1818-1895) grew up as a slave before his escape along the Underground Railroad to New York City. He became a prominent abolitionist activist and was the first African American to ever receive a nomination for the presidency. Booker T. Washington (1856-1915) was head of the Tuskegee Institute and one of the most visible leaders of the emerging civil rights movement . William Still (1821-1902) was a conductor on the Underground Railroad, he helped more than 800 slaves escape their masters and reach freedom in Canada. Harriet Jacobs (1813-1897) managed to escape from servitude to New York in 1842, and a little more than a decade later she told her own story in Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl . Solomon Northrup ( c. 1807-unknown) was born as a free man in New York but was kidnapped and sold into slavery in 1841.

After his escape twelve years later, he became a prominent abolitionist. The details of his death remain a mystery.