Covey, undignified as it was, and as I fear my narration of it is, was the turning-point in my “life as a slave.” It rekindled in my breast the smouldering embers of liberty; it brought up my Baltimore dreams, and revived a sense of my own manhood.
Reflecting on his fight with Covey, Douglass describes this act of resistance as the defining moment that reignited his desire for freedom and affirmed his sense of self.
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I looked into this kitchen with peculiar interest, and remembered that it was there I last saw my mother.
His iron sentences, cold and harsh, sunk like heavy weights deep into my heart, and stirred up within me a rebellion not soon to be allayed.
I wished it was possible I could remain small all my life, knowing that the sooner I grew large the shorter would be my time to remain with them.
But we are not here to applaud manly courage, save as it has been displayed in a noble cause.