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The Role Of Education In Frederick Douglass

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Getting a good education can easily be the foundation for a successful future and windows of opportunity opening for you as a citizen. However in the case of blacks during slave times of America, it was not that structured. Receiving an education as a black slave, no matter the situation, was deemed unlawful as well as highly frowned upon by whites. Those getting an education had to do so under cautious limitations, and if caught, would face severe punishment by their master. Despite the image painted that getting an education was completely impossible, Frederick Douglass managed to put himself above others intellectually, benefiting not only himself with his accomplishments. Assisted ironically, by his master’s wife, Douglass was able to get a basic education for a …show more content…

Summatively, Douglass was able to pioneer the idea that education opened doors for enslaved people in the United States, backed with the idea that knowledge is power and power is freedom. Frederick Douglass was an enslaved African much like many thousands around him. Moving from plantation to plantation, experiencing the wraths of various masters, it seemed Douglass was a typical slave, undistinguished from the crowd. However, upon Douglass’s arrival to Mr. and Mrs. Auld’s plantation in Baltimore, he [Douglass] was greeted with a surprising experience. Douglass’s new mistress, Mrs. Auld was a kinder woman compared and sought to spread knowledge rather than pain. Stated in his experiences coming to the Auld’s home, “she very kindly

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Douglass for example emphasized the importance of education for slaves. Douglass is a first had observer of the strategy of slave owners to keep their slaves ignorant. By keeping slave uneducated they are unable to express the horrible things that happen to them to the world. Hugh Auld forces his wife to stop teaching Douglass to read (auld stopping teaching quote) , so Douglass teaches himself. For him learning to read was a major turning point in his quest for freedom and it enabled him to put out his book, which would inspire many to turn against slavery.

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If a slave could learn how to read or write, they could create a plan to escape. The slaveholders only traded their slaves when it benefitted them, the slaves did not have a say so. The only way they were disloyal was when they tried to escape. When it came to holidays, the slaveholders did not tell them that they should have the time off, being that it was a holiday. They all gathered around and joked about their ignorance towards it. Douglass seemed to see through all of the slaveholder’s doings. He was determined to get away

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Overall Douglass was trying to teach future generations, while also making a statement to the masters that slaves were more than just brainless workers, but could be just as smart or smarter than

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Slavery was a dark point in American history for every African-American born at that time. Slaves had no education and was never taught because it would possibly make the slave stronger. Frederick Douglass was a slave who was able to educate himself. He escaped slavery and ran up North. Few years later, he wrote his autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, explaining his experiences with slavery.

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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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Douglass says, “To wit, It was a grand achievement, I prized it highly. From that moment, I understood the pathway from slavery to liberty” (36). Frederick is saying education when he talks about an achievement. Slave owners would not educate their slaves because if they did, the slaves would have a much better chance of escaping from their masters. One of the ways that they would need education to escape was the passes that they could write to show to the police and other people on the road that they were being sent by their masters.

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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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Education helps people improve completion of their tasks. For instance, education enables all mathematicians to solve for solutions and all great surgeons to perform their surgery because of their knowledge of the human body. However, in this autobiography, Douglass recounts that slaveowners did not want to educate their slaves. If education of slaves would enable them to be more helpful, why would slaveowners choose not to? This was because educating a slave was untraditional, and could cause a slave to rebel against their owner or commit suicide.

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Although Frederick Douglass was not expected to be literate, he taught himself how because he believed that education should be for everyone, not just a few privileged children. Frederick Douglass was a slave for life in the southern United States before the Civil War. He had no regular teacher because, at that time, most slave owners did not believe that their slaves should be taught to read and write. White slave owners thought that if slaves knew how to read, they would go against their owners and fight against slavery.

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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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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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493 Words | 2 Pages

Diane White wrote a passage about fast food being responsible for the decline in table manners in people. She believes that the fast food industry is the main cause of negative table manners. White states her own reasons of the topic but I have a completely different view that probably has a greater logical reasoning that hers. However, I think that discussing both point of views would help give a better understanding of the relevance of fast food with table manners.

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In the book, “Narrative of the Life of FREDERICK DOUGLASS”, expresses about the cruelty and inevitable punishments towards the slaves. Mr.Frederick talks about his early childhood as a slave, and how he grows every day to fight for his freedom. Until the day Mr.Douglass is freed, he tries to endure the lashing of his masters(slave owners) and tries to educate himself by giving away his own food to the educated children, so the educated children will teach him how to read, write, and more. Although the attempt to teach slaves was illegal, Mr.Douglass found people who weren't educated enough to know not to teach a slave, like white children.

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If Ms. Auld didn’t teach Douglass how to write his path to freedom wouldn’t have even started. “After I had learned this, she assisted me in learning to spell words of three or four letters. Just at this point of my progress, Mr. Auld found out what was going on, and at once forbade Mrs. Auld to instruct me further” (40). When Douglass got older and wanted to be a free slave his knowledge came in much handy to help his friends and even himself to escape. “The week before our intended start, I wrote several protections, one for each of us” (78).

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