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 how the confrontation became a pivotal moment in his journey toward freedom and self-respect.
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It was perhaps better for the country and for mankind that the good man could not know the end from the beginning.
I believed I should get enough to eat at Covey’s, even if I suffered in other respects, and this to a hungry man is not a prospect to be regarded with indifference.