Identify the context and significance of this quotation from…

Identify the context and significance of this quotation from Douglass’ Narrative (4-6 good sentences):   This bread I used to bestow upon the hungry little urchins who, in return, would give me the more valuable bread of knowledge. . . . I sometimes would say to them, I wished I could be as free as they would be when they got to be men. “You will be free as soon as you are twenty-one, but I am a slave for life!  Have not I as good a right to be free as you have?”  These words used to trouble them; they would express for me the liveliest sympathy, and console me with the hope that something would occur by which I might be free.