On the one hand, there stood slavery, a stern reality, glaring frightfully upon us,—its robes already crimsoned with the blood of millions, and even now feasting itself greedily upon our own flesh.
In his autobiography, Douglass uses vivid, personified language to describe the brutal and deadly reality of slavery.
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Father he might be, and not be husband, and could sell his own child without incurring reproach, if in its veins coursed one drop of African blood.
I looked into this kitchen with peculiar interest, and remembered that it was there I last saw my mother.
But we are not here to applaud manly courage, save as it has been displayed in a noble cause.
Knowledge unfits a child to be a slave.” I instinctively assented to the proposition, and from that moment I understood the direct pathway from slavery to freedom.