in his book My Bondage and My Freedom, after he had escaped to the North and become a leading advocate of the abolitionist movement, Douglass wrote, “This battle with Mr. Covey … was the turning point in my ‘life as a slave.’ … I was a changed being after that fight…. I had reached the point at which I was not afraid to die. This spirit made me a freeman in fact, while I remained a slave in form.”
