Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave

"I prayed for freedom for twenty years, but received no answer until I prayed with my legs."

In this, the first of his three (!) autobiographies, Douglass tells the tale of his early years in captivity and of his escape to freedom in the northern states, an escape facilitated by his identification of the power of language and of the written word. Forbidden to learn how to read and write, he taught himself by any means necessary, from the surreptitious to the psychological:

"when I met with any boy who I knew could write, I would tell him I could write as well as he. The next word would be, "I don't believe you. Let me see you try it." I would then make the letters which I had been so fortunate as to learn, and ask him to beat that. In this way I got a good many lessons in writing"

Douglass was a slave at birth, illiterate until 12, a free man at 20, an author at 27, and an international figure soon after that. By the end of his life he had been a diplomat, a publisher, a real estate developer, the most famous man of his race in the world, and "the 19th century's most photographed American". If that isn't self improvement I don't know what is!

Unlike some of our other selections, The Narrative isn't necessarily practical advice from our point of view; we all know how to read and came by it easily. Nobody in this club is likely to have to escape from slavery, or to be whipped for mere clumsiness. But this book gives us something else: inspiration, and with it maybe even a motivating dose of shame. After all, will any of our excuses stand up to the scrutiny of a boy that had to bribe other children with stolen bread for reading lessons?

That should give us all something to think about!

We will reconvene at 7PM on September 8 at Vino's, as usual. See you there!