"Learning would SPOIL the best [slave] in the world!" This was how the master of Frederick Douglass, an African American man born into slavery in 1817, felt about educating his slaves. Douglass learned to read and write from his master's wife, but was forbidden to continue his studies because his master felt that educating slaves made them more likely to revolt against their owners. He eventually escaped to the North in 1838 and, six years later, shared his story of slavery and escape in his autobiography The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave. With this book and his powerful speeches, Douglass worked towards the education of black Americans and planted seeds of inspiration for the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s.