Learning To Read By Frederick Douglass

912 Words2 Pages

As much as adolescents complain about education, we would be crippled without it. The immense freedom we have in America to learn whatever we want is something we should not take for granted. People in other countries fight to learn and to educate themselves as best as they can. People in America just 50 years ago had to fight to learn. Could you imagine living in a world where you couldn’t learn? People all over the world fight for that, because it’s scary to live in a world where you can’t do the simple task of reading or writing. What if you couldn’t read the label on a bottle of bleach? Could you imagine the damage that could cause you, simply because you couldn’t read? We have so much knowledge at our fingertips; museums, libraries, public …show more content…

In his essay Learning to Read, Frederick Douglas says “The first step had been taken. Mistress, in teaching me the alphabet, had given me the inch, and no precaution could prevent me from taking the ell.”(127) Douglas then goes on to talk about how he would not give up his education, and would give bread to “the little white boys whom I met in the street” (127) if they would help teach him how to read. Douglas would spend any free time that he had reading and rereading “the book entitled The Columbian Orator” (127) which was about a slave who escaped and caught three different times. This book gave Douglas insight to how poorly he and other slaves were being treated, and how they lacked basic human rights. While Douglas took the time to figure out a plan of escape to the North, he decided to learn how to write, in case he had to write himself a pass. (130) It took Douglas years to learn how to write, but he did it, and it all started with the basic education that he had when his Mistress taught him the …show more content…

Having an education gives a person independence, power, confidence, and freedom. Those who do are uneducated struggle to have the confidence and independence that others do because they may be illiterate or unable to defend their basic human rights, such as Frederick Douglas. When Douglas began to be more and more educated he recognized how poorly he and the other slaves around him were being treated, and started to panic about being a slave for life. The panic he endured gave him a drive to keep educating himself and hopefully run away from his slaveowners and live in the North, where tensions were not as high. Malcolm X had some education from his father and the short amount of schooling that he endured, but began to teach himself more while he was incarcerated. He loved to read about Muhammad and his teachings, and carried out those teachings when he was liberated. Malcolm’s education from the prison helped with the Civil Rights work that he was involved

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