When Douglass was finally able to tell his story and philosophy in full in his own words, it offered perhaps the most compelling counterweight yet to the 1840 census and the positive good theory. In June 1845, Garrison’s printing office published The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave. In five months, 4,500 copies were sold, and in the next five years, 30,000. The gripping best seller garnered Douglass international prestige and forced thousands of readers to come to grips with the brutality of slavery and the human desire of Black people to be free.
