Malcolm Little, or Malcolm X, was born in Omaha, Nebraska, in 1925 was a slave who was imprisoned for burglary when he was twenty years old. He taught himself how to read during his time in prison by writing out every word in a dictionary he found in the prison library. He mainly read non-fiction books about the brutal human carnage and mistreatment of the nonwhite people by the white man. This encouraged him to become an African American Human Rights Activist after he was released from prison in the mid twentieth century. On the other hand, Frederick Douglass was born a slave in Talbot County, Maryland, in 1818. He also taught himself how to read and write during his time as a slave which was very difficult as it was a violation of the law for slaves to read. He eventually learned about the abolitionist movement and was deeply inspired by it. He later became an African American social reformer and leader of the abolitionist movement in the nineteenth century. Malcolm X wrote “Learning to Read” which describes how he learned to read in the course of his time in prison. Frederick Douglass wrote “Learning to Read and Write” which also describes how he learned to read and write when he was a slave.