This book deserves a 10 star rating. It narrates with unstinting honesty the life of slavery experienced by Frederick Douglass as a child, youth and young man before he successfully fled to the North. Douglass' experiences were typical of the places and the time in which he lived. Taken from his mother at a young age, never knowing a mother's warmth and care, he lived helplessly in a brutal society, often witnessing scenes of horror as cruelty after cruelty was heaped upon the heads of black men, women and children. Floggings and other forms of physical brutality were a "normal" part of life for slaves. Overseers and masters committed violent assaults against their slaves on a daily basis. Slaves toiled from sunup to far past sundown barefoot and in rags, living on a subsistence diet of cornmeal and pork that hardly kept them from starvation, and slept on dirt floors. Eating was accomplished without use of utensils. Marriage was forbidden, families were torn apart at a whim, and slaves were altogether considered less than the beasts of the field and treated accordingly. Mr. Douglass learned to read and write, almost exclusively teaching himself, and thus became much more aware of his wretched state. His constant longing for freedom was finally satisfied after his second attempt to escape. He married and was able to establish himself profitably in the North, gradually becoming increasingly involved in the abolitionist movement. The last chapter in his book is a scathing denunciation of what passed for white Christianity in America, especially in the South where slaveholders preached from the pulpit, taught the Sunda school, prayed long and loudly, sang hymns of praise and pretended the most hypocritical piety. Meanwhile, they engaged in the most casual brutality, stealing the freedom of human beings, committing adultery by rape, flogging helpless elderly slaves, torturing any who in the slightest displeased them, apparently without conscience or remorse. The extreme violence which slaves regularly endured was perpetrated deliberately to keep them in constant terror, and to bring home the bitter results of even the slightest fault. Slaves could be and were murdered without consequence to a white killer. The witness of a hundred slaves counted for nothing. One hundred and fifty years after Emancipation, the vestiges of racial hatred and discrimination grimly persist in this country. African Americans are unjustly killed by police in numbers far exceeding their representation in the overall population, live in neighborhoods that might as well be located in the most dismal underdeveloped nations on earth, fill prisons with non- violent offenders, and receive the dregs from white society in education . Mr. Douglass would rightly be appalled at this state of affairs, a legacy of the Black Codes, Jim Crow laws, lynchings and government sanctioned segregation that existed for more than 100 years after the end of the Civil War. America has yet to come to terms with the past, correct the injustices, ensure continuing justice, and THEN move on. There's no moving on without revisiting the past.
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From the Publisher
Former slave, impassioned abolitionist, brilliant writer, newspaper editor, and eloquent orator whose speeches fired the abolitionist cause, Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) led an astounding life.
The Narrative is admired today for its extraordinary passion, sensitive descriptions, and storytelling power.
Published in 1845 to quell doubts about his origin by an impassioned abolitionist and eloquent orator.
In this, the first and most frequently read of his three autobiographies, Douglass provides graphic descriptions of his childhood and horrifying experiences as a slave as well as a harrowing record of his dramatic escape to the North and eventual freedom.
- Can be taught as American history, Black History, an autobiography, and as a study in persuasive argument
- Learn how Douglass's education helped him escape from slavery and enabled him to live freely afterward
- Explore Douglass' ideas and perspectives as he realizes the unfairness of slavery
- An influential text on the abolitionist movement
About the author
Top reviews from the United States
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- Reviewed in the United States on August 20, 2020
- Reviewed in the United States on October 26, 2014
- Reviewed in the United States on October 28, 2020
- Reviewed in the United States on August 11, 2020
- Reviewed in the United States on May 6, 2023
Top reviews from other countries
- Sharon HennessyReviewed in the United Kingdom on October 3, 2020
An account of the diabolical acts of slavery.
- Mrs GReviewed in the United Kingdom on March 3, 2019
Heart-wrenching Literary genius
- Gerry TaylorReviewed in the United Kingdom on July 12, 2020
Get the right version !
- TR KIDDReviewed in the United Kingdom on February 14, 2017
Great book. I feel as though I know him ...
