I’ve always been drawn to African American lit, I am not even sure why, but I was totally drawn in to this book I read for my book club earlier this week.  It is an easy read in the sense that Douglass is a very fluid, matter of fact and yet somehow poetic writer.  It’s also only just over a hundred pages so it’s fast.  I was surprised to be surprised again about the plight of the slaves of North America in the early 1800’s.  I think I was most struck by the fact that Douglass was treated so harshly, beaten down in every sense of the word, and yet had such a deep fire within him demanding and commanding respect despite every social more that existed at the time.  I loved reading about how, even if death would be the consequence, he did not have a choice in the uprising of his soul, that was crying out for justice, equality, and most of all, to be free, like a man.  A rather moving passage in the book is when he watches the great white ships of the Baltimore coast jealously swooning with impatience for his own chance to set sail like these easy vessels.  I felt alarmed when reading about how different masters and their wives could turn from being kind to evil in a short duration of time because of the social influence and the improper balance (i.e. keeping another human as a slave is so antithetical to goodness that evil seemed to seep out of every crevice).  I found Douglass to be a very brave man, and I was encouraged to do what is right no matter what the cost.