He had successfully escaped from slavery.Īfter escaping from slavery, Frederick married Anna.
In less than 24 hours, Frederick arrived in New York City and declared himself free. On September 3, 1838, he disguised himself as a sailor and boarded a northbound train, using money from Anna to pay for his ticket. This time, Frederick met a young free black woman named Anna Murray, who agreed to help him escape. He educated other slaves, physically fought back against a "slave-breaker," and plotted an unsuccessful escape.įrustrated, his slaveowner returned him to Baltimore. When Frederick was fifteen, his slaveowner sent him back to the Eastern Shore to labor as a fieldhand. It was a collection of revolutionary speeches, debates, and writings on natural rights. At twelve, he bought a book called The Columbian Orator. Not allowed to attend school, he taught himself to read and write in the streets of Baltimore. When he turned eight years old, his slaveowner hired him out to work as a body servant in Baltimore.Īt an early age, Frederick realized there was a connection between literacy and freedom.
He never discovered the identity of his father.
He barely knew his mother, who lived on a different plantation and died when he was a young child. Narrative helped change the course of the US abolitionist movement in the mid-19th century and has been changing the lives of readers ever since.Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey was born into slavery on the Eastern Shore of Maryland in February 1818. Published in 1845, his first autobiography became an instant best-seller, putting his life in danger since he had escaped slavery just seven years earlier. The Library of Congress named Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass one of the 88 books that shaped America. In his piece, Stevenson connects the challenges faced by Douglass with the most problematic social injustices of our time such as mass incarceration, racial inequality, and police violence. Bryan Stevenson, author of the New York Times best-seller Just Mercy, writes a brilliant introduction to this bicentennial edition. Morris, Jr., Nettie's eldest son, who describes in more detail his historical kinship to the Douglass and Washington legacies. The foreword of this edition is written by Kenneth B. She is Douglass' great-great-granddaughter and Washington's great-granddaughter. Joseph is the grandfather of Nettie Washington Douglass, who serves as chairwoman for FDFI. It contains a never-before publicized pencil drawing of Douglass on the cover that was created by his grandson Joseph Douglass.
This is a special bicentennial edition of Douglass' most famous book, which has been published by his direct descendants through Frederick Douglass Family Initiatives (FDFI).
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