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Frederick Douglass Influence On Education

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Frederick Douglass was born a slave in rural Talbot County and he served a family in Baltimore. After escaping to the North in 1838, he settled in Bedford, Massachusetts, where he became active in the abolitionist movement. His mistress was kind she taught him the letters of Alphabet and she always instruct him and one day she changed and suddenly stopped teaching him because of the inequality of the people. A form of EOF student stated “For Douglass, gaining knowledge was more of a curse than a blessing because, as a slave, education made him aware that he had absolutely no alternatives to his condition.” I disagree because education is important, he could help other slaves, and he could break off from the black stereotype. Education is important in our lives. Education gives Fredrick Douglass strength and helped him to escape slavery. He struggles …show more content…

He met them many times and in different places to aid him to learn how to read. They helped him many times and then he learned how to read because of the boys. Fredrick Douglass specified “It was the everlasting thinking of my condition that tormented me. There was no getting rid of it. Because he was educated, he could break off from the black stereotype. After he learned how to read and write then he can live in freedom and he is not going to be a slave anymore. Finally, Fredrick Douglass education was a blessing not a curse because education is really important and without education he couldn’t escape slavery and education is strength. Language gives him strength to be able to stand up for himself and it helps him in his future. Education helped him to find his rights and also, he work for it and if I wasn’t smart he wouldn’t learn reading and writing. He wouldn’t be the actives that he was without gaining the understanding of the language and knowledge of the

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Slaves were not supposed to be able to read or write and this made it hard. His mistress always got mad anytime she saw him reading. It was hard for him to accept the things he had read since they gave him more details about his race and what he was going through. Douglass learning how to read and write caused him to deal with his readings emotionally and mentally. Alexie thought that him learning how to read made him smart and he was very proud of doing so.

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Douglass belong to a well off family. The woman of the house thought him how to read and write some things. Until her husband found out that she was teaching him, then she suddenly stopped and was angry at Douglass, when he was reading. They felt like he would listen to the Irishman when he said “They both advised me to run away to the north; that I should find friends there, and that I should be free.” After losing his only source of teaching he resorted to the lest fortunate white kids for help.

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Frederick Douglass was a slave who wanted to learn how to read. His mistress wanted to teach him but her husband did not approve, so he had to find a different way to learn how to read. He gave the white children down the street bread and in return they would teach him to read. Frederick Douglass grew to not like reading because it reminded him that he would never be free. Douglass’s tone in his Autobiography is angry, this helped him achieve his purpose.

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Frederick Douglass, a historic civil rights activist, was born into slavery and fortunately lived long enough to see it end. He may have outlived the enslavement however, equality and direct freedom was not a result of Americanized slavery’s extinction. Douglass lived his post slavery life during the time of Jim Crow laws, enforced segregation laws. He wrote a letter to an unknown recipient, briefing describing the negative impact these laws had on blacks. Although slavery was abolished, it was believed that the act on dominance still played a big part on how whites treated blacks and still does today.

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Frederick Douglass in his narrative “Why I learned to Read and Write” demonstrates how he surpassed many obstacles along the way towards getting an education. These obstacles not only shaped Frederick’s outlook on life but also influenced him in his learning to read and write. Frederick’s main challenge was that of not being an owner of his person but rather a slave and a property to someone else. Frederick Douglass lived in the time when slavery was still taking place and slaveholders viewed slavery and education as incompatible. The slave system didn’t allow mental or physical freedom for slaves; slaveholders were to keep the apt appearance and slaves were to remain ignorant.

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The mid- to late-nineteenth century was a dark time for slaves in the United States of America. There was a constant struggle for power and social standing in the South, and slaves, were caught in the middle. In order for Frederick Douglass to free himself from the educational and spiritual darkness of slavery, it was essential for him to learn to read and write. Throughout his childhood Douglass was passionate about his need for education.

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A theme that is found in the novel “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave” is that being educated is essential for freedom and liberty. In the novel, Douglass shares his experience as a former slave and how he became free. However, if it weren’t for his ambition to learn how to read and write, Douglass may not have accomplished his goal to be a free slave. When Douglass went to live with Mr. Auld, his wife, Mrs. Auld, “kindly commenced to teach [him] the A, B, C” and “how to spell words”. Unfortunately, Mr. Auld discovered what was going on and apprised his wife about how perilous teaching a slave was and said, “if you teach that nigger how to read, there would be no keeping him” and that he “would become unfit for

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Education Determines Your Destination Education is the light at the end of the tunnel, when Frederick uses it he discovers hope. In the story the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Frederick goes through many struggles on his path to freedom, showing us the road from slavery to freedom. At the beginning of the book, Douglass is a slave in both body and mind. When the book ends, he gets both his legal freedom and frees his mind. The path to freedom was not easy, but it got clearer when he got an education.

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The legendary abolitionist and orator Frederick Douglass was one of the most important social reformers of the nineteenth century. Being born into slavery on a Maryland Eastern Shore plantation to his mother, Harriet Bailey, and a white man, most likely Douglass’s first master was the starting point of his rise against the enslavement of African-Americans. Nearly 200 years after Douglass’s birth and 122 years after his death, The social activist’s name and accomplishments continue to inspire the progression of African-American youth in modern society. Through his ability to overcome obstacles, his strive for a better life through education, and his success despite humble beginnings, Frederick Douglass’s aspirations stretched his influence through

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Douglass states: “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 51). Reading and writing opened Frederick Douglass’s eyes to the cause of the abolitionist. He became knowledgeable about a topic that white slave owners tried to keep hidden from their slaves. Literacy would eventually impact his life in more ways than what he could see while he was a young slave under Master Hugh’s

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Because of this, he successfully creates a contrast between what the slave owners think of and treat the slaves and how they are. Douglass says that slave’s minds were “starved by their cruel masters”(Douglass, 48) and that “they had been shut up in mental darkness” (Douglass, 48) and through education, something that they were deprived of, Frederick Douglass is able to open their minds and allow them to flourish into the complex people that they are. By showing a willingness to learn to read and write, the slaves prove that they were much more than what was forced upon them by their masters.

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1727 Words | 7 Pages

With all the knowledge he was gaining, he began to comprehend everything around him. The things he was learning fascinated him, but the “more [he] read, the more [he] was led to abhor and detest [his] enslavers”(Douglass 35); however, that should not be viewed as a negative affect but a positive one. No one should want to be deceived for their entire life. This hatred that he built up motivated him to continue to further educate himself. As a result, he later motivated other slaves to earn an education by having “[availed] themselves to [an] opportunity to learn to read” (Douglass 69) by Douglass teaching them every Sunday.

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Furthermore, Education opened Douglass’s eyes to the reality of his injustice as a slave; thus, compelling him to action as he recalls, “In moments of agony, I envied my fellow-slaves for their stupidity. ”(Douglass, 2014, p.133) Education caused Douglass heartache. While attaining his education benefited Douglass, he could not relate to his fellow slaves. The fellow slaves had the ability to remain content with their current state of being since it was all they had ever known. Douglass knew otherwise and longed for the forbidden life as a free man, as it changed from an unattainable idea into an achievable

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An education often opens new doors for people, but how does a lack of an education affect other people? What causes such a stark difference between people with knowledge and people no knowledge at all? In the Narrative of Frederick Douglass an American Slave we can see that Douglass is more intelligent than the other slaves on the plantation he is living on due to his hidden ability to read. With his level of education, he is able to see the brutal mistreatment of slaves and is unable to look at things the same way when he was an uneducated slave. The slaves on the plantation do not know how to read and therefore do not view being a slave the way Douglass views it.

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However, literacy turns out to be not only bliss, but also painful. Indeed, while learning to read Frederick becomes more and more aware of the injustices of slavery, and this leads him to regret this knowledge “Learning how to read had become a curse rather than a blessing” ( Douglass ) . Douglass believes in the importance of education. He thinks that education is a key part to our life; it is the only way to get freedom. Literacy is very powerful because it can set anyone free to pursue dreams.

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