Essay On Frederick Douglass Education

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Freedom Is it possible for a person to live a free life without even knowing the most basic information about themselves? In the story, “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave” by Frederick Douglass, Frederick Douglass and his fellow slaves was deprived of knowing basic information that an average human should know. Frederick Douglass and many slaves during this lacked any knowledge of their birth date and lacked the the ability to be with family, as families were torn apart as a result of slavery. The slave owners did not allow the slaves to receive an education and learn how to read and write as they tried to maintain the slaves at an animal mentality. Basic education is a necessity because without it, you would have no knowledge to help you carry modern day to day tasks. Once the slaves were freed, they faced significant challenges because of their lack of knowledge. Douglass was motivativated to become an educated person as knew it would help him succeed and become a free man. It is human nature to understand where you come from, where you were born, what your ancestry is. This is essential to building an identity for any human, but in the narrative, the slave owners would keep the slaves …show more content…

This quote states that through education, he has opened up and realized how the impact that the slave mentality had been imposed by slave masters and the extent of the unfair treatment of blacks through slavery. Douglass realizes that he saw how power corrupted the white slave masters and hurt them along with the slaves. His relationship with Mrs. Auld in Baltimore was evidence of that, as at first, she was a very nice and respectful person that began to teach him how to read, but her power over him corrupted her and turned her into an evil person, eventually mistreating Douglass as a slave master

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