Frederick Douglass Importance Of Reading Essay

To the common scholar, reading is the foundation for the enormous structure entitled “knowledge”. To the slave of the 1800’s, reading was a curse, a source of worry for him and his wellbeing. Frederick Douglass so brilliantly exemplifies this in his self-written biography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave. However, his apparently minor inconvenience in the timeline of the history of man is greatly minimized by the fruits which it brought forth. Reading may have been the temporary source of pain for Douglass, but it was a permanent blessing, both historically and politically, for those who followed. Douglass, like most all humans, had a conscience, a barrier separating the ethical from the unethical, the true from the false. Nonetheless, the vile nature of

He was an advisor to Lincoln, the man who had the power and the integrity to emancipate those held manacled to the Southern Slave Codes. Could he have done so without the knowledge to read? Possibly, but the influence he had would have been less distinct, and he would not have had the vocabulary to elaborate on the issues of which he was concerned. This powerful oral expression that literacy gave him led him to be a powerful speaker for other key issues during his lifetime, mainly women’s rights. He did, after all, attend the first Women’s Rights Convention in 1848 and speak strongly of the issues concerning the suffragette community. Likewise, these communication skills granted him capabilities and opportunities to serve in multiple positions, including his appointment to marshal of the District of Columbia from 1877 to 1881 and a recorder of deeds for Washington from 1881 to 1886. Simply put, if he did not have literacy, he would not be revered with titles from his newly-freed brethren or through his designated roles in