|
|
|
|
|
Narrative Of The Life & Times Of Frederick Douglass
Frederick Douglass
Reviewed by Steven Fullwood
Four years before Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey, better known as Frederick
Douglass, ran away to freedom, he frees his mind. After a particularly brutal day of work,
his third master, Mr. Covey, approached Douglass to beat him. This incident proved to be
an epoch in Douglass' life, (who emerged the indisputable winner) as he tells readers:
"I long resolved that, however long I might remain a slave in form, the day had
passed forever when I could be a slave in fact." |
|
To Buy
Click Here
|
|
|
|
Douglass' first book, Narrative of the Life
and Times of Frederick Douglass, lays bare American Slavery's vile innards for all to
experience. Although he'd live to write several more books, through his narrative he
renders a disturbing portrait of a system that corrupted both slave and slave owner.
Written twenty years before the Emancipation Proclamation, the eloquent author, orator and
visionary begins his tragic and ultimately triumphant tale by describing his life as a
child in Maryland. Douglass' troubling descriptions reveal the most deplorable and
reprehensible conditions of living in bondage - a seemingly bottomless state of physical,
emotional, psychological and spiritual cruelties. What is telling about the narrative is
that it begins with Douglass in bondage, but closes with Douglass shedding his physical
shackles, courageously defining himself.
As a child, Douglass recalls the woeful tale of his parentage. Particularly wrenching is
his mother's fate. Mothers were separated from their children at an early age and
Douglass' mom lived on another plantation. After a day in the fields, she walked twelve
miles to lay with her young son at night. Come morning, he'd awake to find her gone. Upon
her passing, Douglass was not allowed to attend her burial. The way in which Douglass
experiences his mother forms the crux of American Slavery, namely the destruction of the
Black family. Douglass writes: "Never having enjoyed, to any considerable extent, her
soothing presence, her tender watchful care, I received the tidings of her death with much
the same emotion I should have probably felt at the death of a stranger."
Douglass' thirst for freedom was exacerbated by his quest for education. One of his
mistresses endeavored to teach him to write, but was quickly admonished by her husband who
explained that educating a slave ruins him, rendering him unmanageable. Overhearing these
words only fueled young Douglass' mission. He traded bread for lessons from white urchins
in his neighborhood and he voraciously read anything he could get his hands on at the risk
of being punished.
Narrative of the Life and Times of Frederick Douglass is a seminal work that should be
read by every American. This son of a slave owner and slave offers an invaluable gift to
the nation, one that illuminates the slaveocracy that built it. It is a testament to the
men, women and children who lived in bondage - recognition that's long overdue.
M
February 2001 |
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
