"Once you learn to read you will forever be free" This is powerful, so, so powerful. This is a remarkable achievement considering it is written in such a straight forward manner by a man who taught himself to read. There is no embellishment or dramatic imagery here; it is simple, straightforward, harrowing, fact. It is such a strong narrative that I’m extremely glad I read. I recommend it to everyone. Moreover, to emphasise the sheer depravity, and brutality, these slaves were subjected to,

Thank you Mr. Douglass…this was a life changer for me. You are a true American hero and the fact that there are not more monuments, government buildings, holidays or other commemorations of your life seems to me an oversight of epic proportions. How often is it that you can honestly say that you’ll never be the same after reading a book? Well, this life story of a singular individual has changed me....irrevocably. I will never be able to sufficiently express my gratitude to Mr. Douglass for that...

Time for a reread! What I like more about Douglass than anything else at all is his clear thinking on subject peoples. He saw that the discrimination against blacks and women was from an identical stance. That white men were imposing a structure of equality and entitlement that placed them at the top, and everyone else far beneath them. Indeed America's much lauded equality didn't apply to Blacks as they property not people. It hasn't changed much in very many countries, if not all, but you can

This book is not an important historical document to be placed in a glass case and venerated during Black History Month. It should be read by all, regardless of race or creed, as a warning against prejudice and oppression.Douglass' description of the cruel conditions of slavery is mind-searing. His analysis of the system which fostered and condoned it shows amazing depth. He shows that slavery made wretched the lives of the victims but that it also warped the perpetrators, and created a regime i...

Every once in awhile you read what I call a 'satori' book...you see things from a perspective that will never let you go back to your previously held beliefs. This book really opened my eyes to slavery and the toll it took on countless human beings. Frederick Douglass is truly one of the great intellectuals of American history.

Excellent. It’s an end in itself, of course, but I’m also reading as a kind of preface to Caryl Phillips’s Crossing the River, Jesmyn Ward’s Sing, Unburied, Sing and as an afterword to David M. Oshinsky’s Worse Than Slavery: Parchman Farm and the Ordeal of Jim Crow Justice. The writing is marvelous. On to My Bondage and My Freedom.

Book Review I first read the biographical introduction about Frederick Douglass and learned many new things. I knew he wrote a few autobiographies, but I never knew that he spanned them over 40 years of writing and that he lived for close to 80 years. I then read both the preface by Garrison and the letter to Douglas. They were excellent introductions to the narrative by Frederick Douglass. They set the mood and get you ready to experience a whole new set of emotions when you read Dou

"…My copybook was the board-fence, brick wall, and pavement; my pen and ink was a lump of chalk. With these, I learned mainly how to write."As with Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, I feel as though I should start by reiterating these simple truths about the narrative: Yes, Douglass did write this book himself; No, he was not against Christianity, only a staunch opponent of hypocritical Christians; No, he did not promote hatred of man - his hate was of slavery. The hearth is desolate. Th...

Frederick Douglass was a man of faith, and as such he wanted to believe that all men of faith were, at their core, decent men.“In August, 1832, my master attended a Methodist camp meeting held in Bay-side, Talbot county, and there experienced religion. I indulged a faint hope that his conversion would lead him to emancipate his slaves, and that, if he did not do this, it would, at any rate, make him more kind and humane. I was disappointed in both these respects...”Experience taught Frederick Do...

Powerful, eloquent and utterly moving, especially considering it was written by a man who taught himself how to read and write while a slave. The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass regrettably does not go into detail regarding the particulars of Douglass' escape to freedom. Having written his memoirs while slavery was still ongoing, he was afraid to reveal his methods for fear of endangering the lives of those who assisted him, as well as potentially shutting down an avenue of escape fo...

Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Thou shalt not covet; and if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.But he, willing to justify himself, said unto Jesus, And who is my neighbour?(Rom 13:9, Luke 10:29)This short intense painful powerful book shows us very clearly that the regime in American slaveholding farms in the 19th century was similar to Nazi concentration camps....

O, God, save me! God, deliver me! Let me be free! Is there any God? Why am I a slave? I will run away. I will not stand it. Get caught, or get clear, I’ll try it. I had as well die with ague as the fever. I have only one life to lose. I had as well be killed running as die standing. Only think of it; one hundred miles straight and I am free! Try it? Yes! God helping me, I will. It cannot be that I shall live and die a slave. It may be that my misery in slavery will only increase my happiness whe...

What a powerful piece of writing this is. Slavery is such an ugly part of American history, and this narrative tells all of the ordeals that Frederick Douglass had to overcome, including whippings, beatings, hunger, tyrannical masters, backbreaking labor, and horrible living conditions. Douglass was born in Maryland in 1818, but even that year is a guess because slaves were generally not allowed to know their birthdate. He knew little of his mother because the master sent her away, and then she

4.5/5Unlike many on this site, if one may judge from the reviews and most popular tags of this work, I did not encounter this in school. This is unfortunate, as exposure to this at a younger age may have made my frame of references less solidified, Moby Dick over here and slavery narratives of there and all the usual sorts of aborted cross-reference and false literary linearity. These days, I am not as suspect to being fenced in by required reading in academia, but there are some still some sick...

This is one of the most amazing pieces of writing I have ever read. Unfortunately, I grew up in Texas--a fact for which I have only recently forgiven my parents, with difficulty--and therefore was never forced to read anything more incendiary than To Kill a Mocking Bird or Uncle Tom's Cabin. Digression: Also, I had a creationist biology teacher. But yes. We didn't read any firsthand slave narratives. I don't even remember learning about the civil rights movements. Maybe we did. All of this jibba...

Third Reading“I prayed for freedom for twenty years, but received no answer until I prayed with my legs.” ― Frederick Douglass******Frederick Douglass was born a slave in Maryland in 1817 (or 1818). After several failed attempts he managed to escape to the North in 1838. He became an ardent and effective abolitionist, orator, writer, and statesman.He had learned to read and write as a slave, first aided by the wife of one of his masters, until her husband stepped in and convinced her that teachi...

A must read autobiography. I highly recommend.

This is a very brief first volume of a three volume autobiography. It is moving, powerful and horrific portrait of slavery in one of the so-called more humane slave states in the 1820s and 1830s. It is an important historical document, but is also much more than that; published in 1845 it opened a window for the general public in the north who knew little about the inner workings of slavery. Douglass does not know his birthday, who his father was and was separated from his mother very early in l...

This is just the first volume of a three volume autobiography which paints a horrific portrait of the so-called “humane” slave states in the early 1800s. Douglas’ eloquent and powerful narrative details brutality of slave existence, from being separated from their mothers at a young age, to rape, whippings, abuse and denial of any human rights or sense of self. His autobiography shares various, intricate details to the nuanced experience of slavery. He gives us glimpses into the various attitude...

Houston A Baker Jr introduces Douglass' narrative by positioning it within a rich tradition in two senses. Firstly, many former slaves published accounts of their experiences - a fact that I was not aware of and that Baker says has been poorly acknowledged, while the work of white abolitionists has been much-celebrated. Secondly, the literary interests of the period, absorbed by Douglass in his forbidden, covert, voracious reading, are expressed through the lyrical and dramatic qualities of his