A Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave
Frederick Douglass
Born a slave in 1818 on a plantation in Maryland, Douglass taught himself to read and write. In 1845, seven years after escaping to the North, he published Narrative, the first of three autobiographies. This book calmly but dramatically recounts the horrors and the accomplishments of his early years—the daily, casual brutality of the white masters; his painful efforts to educate himself; his decision to find freedom or die; and his harrowing but successful escape. An astonishing orator and a skillful writer, Douglass became a newspaper editor, a political activist, and an eloquent spokesperson for the civil rights of African Americans. He lived through the Civil War, the end of slavery, and the beginning of segregation. He was celebrated internationally as the leading black intellectual of his day, and his story still resonates in ours.
Publication Year: 2015
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This short book clocks in at only four hours of listening time. They may be the best four hours you spend this year.
Frederick Douglass’s autobiography is searing, approachable, and informative. It describes, in agonizing detail, what it means to be enslaved. It impeaches the cruelty of “bad” and “good” slaveholders alike. It gives us the growth and flowering of a man as he realizes his self-worth in a society bent on dehumanizing him at every turn.
Much as we’d like to look away, the story of slavery is every bit as much a part of the American tapestry as the story of the Battle of Yorktown. Every American owes to himself to read this book. It will inform you. It will anger you. It will inspire you.
It is, simply put, a masterpiece.
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