This dramatic autobiography of the early life of an American slave was first published in 1845, when its young author had just achieved his freedom. Douglass' eloquence gives a clear indication of the powerful principles that led him to become the first great African-American leader in the United States. The personal account of a fugitive slave's privation and sufferings and his campaigns for Negro emancipation. This dramatic autobiography of the...

"An outspoken abolitionist, Frederick Douglass was born into slavery in 1818, and after his escape in 1838, he repeatedly risked his own freedom as an antislavery lecturer, writer, and publisher. My Bondage and My Freedom represents ten years of reflection following his legal emancipation in 1846 and his break with his mentor, William Lloyd Garrison. Upon its initial publication in 1855, this book catapulted Douglass into the international spotlight...