My Bondage and My Freedom, by escaped slave Frederick Douglass, is a classic that should be mandatory reading for every high school student. The lessons tucked within its pages, which are honest and deep, reveal the harrowing, brutal and heart-breaking nature of slvery.

A slave for the first two decades of his life, Frederick Douglass escaped the horrors of that institution through a combination of determination, luck and (most likely) divine intervention. After his escape, Douglass dedicated the rest of his life to helping with the abolition movement as he spoke throughout Britain and the U.S. against the institution of slavery.

Some of the most powerful parts of this book are the records of the speeches Douglass made to the British Parliament. Speaking to Parliament members, Douglass laid out his case as to why slavery should be obliterated from the earth. The stories Douglass told, and the things he said, are nothing short of shocking-even today. The saddest part is that everything he said was true.