In The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Douglass uses his life of slavery to describe his experience and witness of the white man’s cruelty. There is a huge inequality between White American and African American and the relationship seems impossible to overturn. Not only the whites are superior, the white man is the owner to the black slave. Therefore, the white man is justified to do anything to his slave because the slave is considered his property. As Douglass records, “I have seen him [master] whip a woman, causing the blood to run half an hour at the time… He seemed to take pleasure in manifesting his fiendish barbarity” (Douglass, 2). It is obvious that the white man master does not treat his slave as a human being. In addition, the cruelty of slavery seems endless that children are force to be separated from their mother. Family is forced to destroy its bonds.

Through the lens of Frederick Douglass, there are some similar between Douglass narrative and Malcolm X’s autobiography. Malcolm’s self-education through reading books gives him the knowledge of African American’s history. Malcolm points out that “…history had been “whitened”— when white men had written history books, the black man simply had been left out” (Malcolm X, 3). He means that the history books are in favor to white men and the books describe slavery as if it is normal. Malcolm reacts to this with complete shock and he continue to study more about the “sin and the blood on the white man’s hands”. Malcolm X reads about “black slave women tied up and flogged with whips; of black mothers watching their babies being dragged off, never to be seen by their mothers again” (Malcolm X, 3). Malcolm’s narrative is similar to Douglass’s personal story in a way that both of them think slavery is an horrible act in history, and white men’s violent and cruelty toward slave can never to justify.