Trailblazers in Black History: William Wells Brown

William Wells Brown was a prominent African-American abolitionist lecturer, novelist, playwright, and historian in the United States. Born into slavery in Montgomery County, Kentucky, near the town of Mount Sterling, Brown escaped to Ohio in 1834 at the age of 20. He settled in Boston, where he worked for abolitionist causes and became a prolific writer. His novel Clotel (1853), considered the first novel written by an African American, was published in London, where he resided at the time; it was later published in the United States.

Brown was a pioneer in several different literary genres, including travel writing, fiction, and drama. In 1858, he became the first published African-American playwright, and often read from this work on the lecture circuit. Following the Civil War, in 1867, he published what is considered the first history of African Americans in the Revolutionary War. He was among the first writers inducted to the Kentucky Writers Hall of Fame. A public school was named for him in Lexington, Kentucky. 

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Source: Wikipedia