Douglass, in his memoir, tells the story of his new mistress, Mrs. Auld, unaccustomed to slaves, starting to teach him to read as a child. She is quickly stopped by her husband and soon becomes an arrogant slave owner, but she plants a seed inside of Douglass that continues to grow. He becomes determined to learn to read, and when he can no longer obtain that knowledge at home, seeks it from white boys on the streets of Baltimore as he is running his errands. He literally trades them the bread he can bring with him from home for the more "valuable bread" of knowledge. Reading is important to him because it opens up worlds normally closed to a slave. From an early age, though oppressed by the idea of forever being a slave, he has a drive towards freedom—and learning to read is part of that drive.

After he does escape, his reading skills allow him to peruse the abolitionist newspaper The Liberator. He says the paper set his soul on fire. From the paper, he also learned the principles of abolition and became a true believer in the cause. Reading, therefore, offered him a counter-narrative to the propaganda of the slave owner, which was meant to keep the slaves in their places. Reading, for Douglass, became a form of power.