Compare And Contrast Malcolm X And Frederick Douglass

Malcolm X and Frederick Douglass: A Testament to Self-Education

"Learning to Read” by Frederick Douglass and “A Homemade Education” by Malcolm X are two essays, excerpted from their author’s respective autobiographies, and written more than a century apart, that unfortunately share corresponding themes of social injustice and inequality. For Douglass, it was slavery. For Malcolm, it was racial segregation. These essays tell the story and display the self-education both men had given themselves. Their styles, wording, and vocabulary are examples of ways they had taught themselves and how they rose above what was expected of them based off their previous situations and formal education, or lack thereof. Despite the one hundred and twenty years

Malcolm X and Frederick Douglass share a similar ethos in their respective essays. Their credibility is derived from the fact that they had to undergo teaching themselves how to read and write at a higher level, and in their essays, they give firsthand accounts of ways in which they taught themselves to read and write. Frederick Douglass was a slave when he first learned the alphabet. In his essay “Learning to Read,” after the wife of his master refused to teach him anything else, he was left alone with the hunger to learn more. Douglass recollects "The first step in her downward course was in her ceasing to instruct me" (61). The once kind-hearted woman had now been corrupted by the tyrannical rule that came with owning slaves. It was now on Douglass to continue his education on his own. The ethos at play here is that this is Douglass's own personal story. He might have been nudged in a certain direction, but it was through his own undertaking that he became literate; Douglass states "The

For Douglass, the book in question was “The Columbian Orator.” What Douglass would read from this book would change his outlook about his slaveholders completely, stating “The more I read, the more I was led to abhor and detest my enslavers. I could regard them in no other light than a band of successful robbers, who had left their homes, and gone to Africa, and stolen us from our homes, and in a strange land reduced us to slavery” (Douglass 62). Douglass had learned the full, horrible scope of the slave trade that he was designated to. It was this information that made Douglass regret his ability to read, expressing “I envied my fellow-slaves for their stupidity” (64) and “It was this everlasting thinking of my condition that tormented me.” (64). These heart wrenching statements coupled with the fact that Douglass is recalling a time when he was just twelve years old is very saddening. It is within this sadness that Douglass’s writing truly shines, the way he describes this period in his life of utter hopelessness is another testament to how far Douglass had progressed in his self-education. Correspondingly, Malcolm makes a similar discovery from books written by Frederick Olmstead. Malcolm describes slavery as “The world most monstrous crime, the sin and the blood on the white man’s hands, are almost impossible to