26. Frederick Douglass
Frederick was born into slavery in the American South and escaped to the North as a young man. There, he became known as a very well-respected orator and public intellectual. So much so that he made people question the argument that Blacks were intellectually inferior. His work on abolition helped set the stage for the freeing of enslaved people in the United States. Afterward, he worked on advancing their rights. Douglass was willing to reach across ideological lines and encouraged dialogue with slaveholders against many of the white abolitionists of his day. Plus, he firmly believed in the liberal values of the US Constitution.