Before Frederick Douglass or Ida B. Wells, David Ruggles was an outspoken abolitionist and pioneering journalist who fought slavery with words and deeds. Ruggles was described as the "soul of the Underground Railroad" long before Harriet Tubman became Moses. He helped as many as 600 enslaved people escape to freedom. He also owned a grocery store and the first Black-owned bookstore, filled with antislavery literature (swipe to see an advertisement). He founded his own magazine to advance the abolitionist cause. Ruggles ultimately paid a steep price for his activism, exhausting himself and burning out way too soon. He died blind and ill at 39, never acquiring much fame or fortune. “Ruggles' relentless, uncompromising vigilance against kidnappers and deeply humane assistance to Blacks fleeing slavery make him a model for any American battling for our freedoms,” said Graham Hodges, a history professor at Colgate University in New York. Go to USATODAY.com to read his full story.