My Bondage and My Freedom

My Bondage and My Freedom, writes John Stauffer in his Foreword, “[is] a deep meditation on the meaning of slavery, race, and freedom, and on the power of faith and literacy, as well as a portrait of an individual and a nation a few years before the Civil War.” As his narrative unfolds, Frederick Douglass - abolitionist, journalist, orator, and one of the most powerful voices to emerge from the American civil rights movement - transforms himself from slave to fugitive to reformer, leaving behind a legacy of social, intellectual, and political thought.