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Frederick Douglass 'Liberating Ignorance'

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Liberating Ignorance
Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey also known as Frederick Douglass was born in Tuckahoe, Maryland during slavery. He was immediately removed from his mother, this was very common during slavery, and was raised by the grandmother of all slave babies. At the age of eight he was sent off to his first masters house where he heard rumors his master was his father. Through the slavery days, slave owners often raped and impregnated their female slaves and profited with the extra free slave labor. This tended to assure continuance in suffrage as a slave. The slaveholder’s wife would feel insulted with their presence and were mistreated and continually sold the mixed raced slaves. During his stay with his master Captain Anthony …show more content…

Frederick Douglass understood that people are created equal. Education and self-improvement were extremely important to him, we weren't just born free: we have to make ourselves into who we are. The worst thing about slavery, to his mind, is that it prevents people from improving themselves through education (Shmoop Editorial Team). As Mr. Douglass grew into the slave life he questioned multiple things of his life. He wanted to know why he was deprived from knowing his age while other white boys knew their age. Slaves did not have birth certificates. Slaveholders use this tactic to gain power over the slaves. Slaves did not have the knowledge to defend themselves. Slaveholders knew that by keeping slaves ignorant they would not question the right as an African-American slave to the whites. “ A nigger should know nothing but to obey his master- to do as he is told… if you teach that nigger how to read there will be no keeping him. It will forever unfit him to be a slave” (Douglass 20). Without knowing Mr. Douglass’s master reveled to him the path to freedom. The southerners need every hand they can get for labor if it’s free the better. As previously mentioned slaveholders kept their slaves uneducated because they weren’t able to rebel or do better. Having an educated slave made then fit for higher non-labor

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In Frederick Douglass’s essay “Learning to Read and Write,” he uses his essay to get the point across by being educated in reading, he learns he is a “slave for life.” By that saying he realizes that if he ever becomes free from slavery, he will never be free in a state of mind. He is always going to be a slave, weather it would be master huge, or learning. So learning to read and understand the meaning of words he sees his problem of being able to read and have the ability to understand what happening around him; through “The Colombian Orator.” And after reading and understanding, no man should be a slave.

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Fredrick Douglass was a black slave during the 1800’s who escaped from his master and came to the North. His age is unknown as stated by Fredrick Douglass (1845/1995), a great orator who brought many to the abolitionist cause, in his work, Narrative of the Life of Fredrick Douglass, “I was born in Tuckahoe, near Hillsborough, and about twelve miles from Easton, in Talbot County, Maryland. I have no accurate knowledge of my age, never having seen any authentic record containing it” (p.1). While Douglass was a slave he was convinced that education was the path to freedom, he also witnessed the horrors of slavery, and would most likely hold the same views in today’s world as he had back in the 1800’s. Douglass believed that education was the path to freedom and the view was correct.

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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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It would forever unfit him to be a slave.” (48). After hearing a demoralizing quote like this, most enslaved people would be upset. They might take his words and see their chance at an education disappear, but Douglass looked at this statement another way. He came to the realization that masters believed that knowledge would give any enslaved person the chance to become intellectually free.

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Douglass showed readers that to truly obtain freedom it has to be through discovery of identity, including education, and knowledge of one’s self. Douglass’s narrative shows how only when Douglass understands who he is through education and that broadens his understanding of how slavery is dehumanizing as well as, strengthening his desire to emancipate himself.

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Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey was born in 1818 a runaway slave, a supporter of women 's rights, and probably the most prominent abolitionist and human rights leader of the nineteenth century. Douglass favored the use of political tactics to work for abolition. During the Civil War, he offer a suggestion to President Lincoln to let former slaves fight for the North, and helped organize two black regiments in Massachusetts. Douglass was committed to make the war a direct confrontation with slavery. A literate runaway slave, Douglass began his speaking career in 1841, when he delivered some extemporaneous remarks on his experiences under slavery at a Massachusetts antislavery convention.

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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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Douglass and other slaves were only seen as property to their masters. Not only was being a slave master accepted as the norm , so was being of the Caucasian race. Whatever the Caucasian American said became the rules of society. Many of the slaves also saw being a slave as the norm for anyone of the African American race. Douglass was exploited throughout his experience as a slave.

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