A daily Black History Month fact that has nothing to do with George Washington Carver, MLK, Jr., or Harriet Tubman. Promise!

William Wells Brown was born a slave in Kentucky in 1815. According to legend, he's the grandson of Daniel Boone. As a boy working on a steamboat in the Mississippi River, Brown escaped to Canada, where he made a living as a steward on a ship that sailed the Great Lakes. During this time, he taught himself to read and write, married a free black woman, and became active in th Underground Railroad.

Through his work as an abolitionist, he became a renowned public speaker and a writer. He published several works — including an autobiography called The Narrative of William W. Brown, a Fugitive Slave and Three Years in Europe, a travel memoir. With his 1853 novel, Clotel (or President's Daughter), which was based on the love affair of Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson and published in England, he became and became the first African American to publish a novel. He was also the first African American to publish a play. He died in Massachusetts in 1884.

This concludes your daily dose of BHM.