SOURCE: Hubbard, Dolan. “‘Ain't Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around’: Reading the Narrative of Frederick Douglass.” In The Intimate Critique: Autobiographical Literary Criticism, edited by Diane P. Freedman, Olivia Frey, and Frances Murphy Zauhar, pp. 265-71. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1993.

In the following essay, Hubbard, an African-American university professor, describes his experiences reading and teaching Douglass's Narrative.

Reading Frederick Douglass's Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, Written by Himself (1845) is liberating and exhilarating for me. On numerous occasions his words have lifted my spirits such as when I was unexpectedly thrust into the spotlight as chair of the Faculty Senate at Winston-Salem (N.C.) State University, or when I felt worn down during the grind of a rigorous doctoral program as one of three African American students at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, or in those moments when I do a...