Some people had harsh time having an educated life back then because of the laws but certain people made that kind of law changed but people still have a type of way that stops them from getting an achievable life. Not lots of people have an education because of the way they set their self-up to, but others want an education in life and they work hard to achieve what they really wanted in life. The plight of people across time and across the world was that it was illegal to teach a slave to read and wright, women had hard time getting an education, and certain people had to suffer to get an education.
To begin with, everybody has rights to learn but should it be a typical person to be toughed. The plight of people across time and across the world was that it was illegal to teach a slave to read and right. Why should it matter if you a slave or not in order for you to learn? Frederick Douglass was a slave and because of him being a slave it was illegal for him to learn. Douglass was someone that wanted to learn so he had to escape slavery to have the ability to read
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In your mind you probably asking ''Why and how people could suffer to get an education?'' Well Malala, a fourteen-year-old campaigner for education for girls, had to suffer to keep her educated life. Nobody must suffer because they want an education, having an education is a part of life and they need an education to be successful and they also need an education to achieve their goals. Without an education you won't be successful in the things you try to achieve. In the passage ''The Girl Who Wanted to Go to School'' states ''She was just the girl who wanted to go school,'' Mirza Wahead, the former editor of the Urdu Web site of BBC World Service, told me. This explaining that all Malala wanted was to go to school, Malala didn’t have to suffer to go to school, but that one person didn’t Malala to achieve her goals in
Frederick Douglass was born into slavery; that's what he thought he was going to be for the rest of his life. Later on he was tempted to do more, much more than to be someone's property. Whenever he could, he would turn children into teachers. “This bread I used to bestow upon the hungry little urchins , who, in return, would give me that more valuable bread of knowledge.”
Frederick Douglass’s “The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass an American Slave” recounts the life of Frederick Douglass as a slave on his journey to finding freedom. As a slave, he was treated as a second-rate citizen and was not taught how to be literate. Literacy is the ability to read and write. Slaves were robbed of the privilege of reading and writing and thus robbed of any educational means. Without these educational means, slaves were not allowed to grow in society and have a sense of capability within society. Instead, slaves were suppressed by the white man as property and forced to labor as the lowest part of society. Literacy is the education that separates humans from other forms of life and whites from slaves. Literacy
Kids today, or people that have never read before, see the fascination of books and develop a curiosity and desire to read. Frederick Douglass is an example of that same desire. Before learning to read, Frederick believed that black people were destined to be the white man’s slaves. It was normal for slaves to do back-breaking work and get whipped for doing anything wrong. It wasn’t until Douglass learned to read that the life of a slave was actually wrong and he wished to live a free life. “Suddenly, Douglass sees this whole education thing in a new light: if he can learn to read, he reasons, he won't have to be a slave anymore.”(Shmoop) It is highly illegal for anyone to keep or ev...
In order for Douglass to reach his goal of becoming a free man he thought the only way out was education. He needed to learn how to read, write, and think for himself about what slavery was. Since literacy and education were so powerful to Frederick he persevered to get himself the education he wanted. …. Douglass knew it wouldn’t be easy, but that didn’t stop him. Douglass realized the “ conscious of the difficulty of learning without a teacher, I set out with a high hope, and
Many people take for grant of the freedom we have, but Douglass shows that having freedom means having the ability to control one’s own destiny. Douglass was a slave who like any other slaves cannot be educated. Douglass finds this out by accident when he overhears the reasons why it was illegal for them to get education- it because the white slave owners did not want slaves to gain knowledge as it will bring disorder and rebel against slavery. As a result of this finding, Douglass seeks out his own education. One of his methods of learning how to read is by exchanging foods for learning to read. During the slavery, poverty also affected all different people, so Douglass would give breads to poor children and for exchange teach Douglass some words. For Douglass learning meant punishments or even death, but he takes the risk and did all he can to gain knowledge because this is the only way he can be free. He demonstrates to people that education is powerful and the way one can truly be self-governed. Douglass story is a reminder to always appreciate education and to take the most out of learning because in the end no one can take away what’s in our
During the pre-Civil War America, the enslaved African American’s were not recommended to be taught any form of education such as reading or writing. Many of the white people believed that if the slaves were to learn how to read and write that they would then start to think for themselves and create plans of a rebellion. There was sure to be a rebellion if they were to be taught any form of education. To make sure that the African American slaves did not try to become educated they had harsh punishments for anyone that tried to learn how to read and to write. Education during the pre-African-American Civil Rights Movement was a lot different from how it was during pre-Civil War America. The African American’s had schools that they could attend, but they were separated from the white people. There schools were not located in spots as pleasant as the schools that the white people attended. The African American’s did not have the same quantity and quality supplies as the white schools. Examples of how the African American’s did not receive the same type of tools to help with their education was shown in A Lesson Before Dying. The African American’s had books that had pages missing and that were falling apart, limited amount of chalk, pencils, paper, and other learning utensils while the schools that the white people attended had more than enough supplies and new books
He had long fought to learn to read and was so excited and eager to do so, he never expected the circumstances of this to be as dehumanizing as they were. He regretted learning to read because it brought him nothing but desperation, he learned his awful truth and that of his fellow slaves. "It had given me a view of my wretched condition, without the remedy." (Douglass, 24) The truth was that the more he learned the more he became aggravated, he knew there was not much he could do. It brought his moral down along with many other feelings, even a slave like Frederick had learned the awful feeling of
It was important for Frederick Douglass to learn to read because he could teach other slaves to read. In the excerpt, Douglass states, “Mistress, in teaching me the alphabet, had given me the inch, and no precaution could prevent me from taking the ell”(80). Knowledge was dangerous at this point in time. When Douglass taught slaves to read, he helped them gain some knowledge of themselves. He could also gain knowledge that his slave master did not want him to know such as roads or things that could aid in his escape. Douglass being able to read was significant because it made him an empowered black man. If Frederick Douglass never learned to read, he would not have been the political activist he was. He would have probably never escaped nor would he have shared the knowledge he gained.
Literacy plays an important part in helping Douglass achieve his freedom. Learning to read and write enlightened his mind to the injustice of slavery; it kindled in his heart longings for liberty. Douglass’s skills proved instrumental in his attempts to escape and afterwards in his mission as a spokesman against slavery. Douglass was motivated to learn how to read by hearing his master condemn the education of slaves. Mr. Auld declared that education would “spoil” him and “forever unfit him to be a slave” (2054).
Mr. Auld believed that teaching a slave was not only a bad idea, but also against the law. Douglass said, “Learning would spoil the best nigger in the world.” At this point, Douglass mentioned that he had a completely new realization, a new thought that black men are slaves because of their lack of knowledge. Douglass understands the main function that literacy plays in a white-dominated society during that time. Teaching a few things to a young slave will make him "unmanageable" and "unfit" to perform his job as a slave. Education will raise a slave’s self-conscious mind and help him to understand the value of a free life. Douglass thought without education the slave would never learn what he should have, and what he is missing. He was in a dark place where the rest of the slaves knew nothing about a free life. He believed only education could give them their desired life. If he learned to read, then he wouldn't have to be a slave anymore. T...
Douglass was not aware of what slaves were and why they were treated in a bad condition before he learns how to read. He was deeply saddened upon discovering the fact that slaves were not given the rights every human being should have. In an effort to clarify Douglass’s feelings of anguish, he states: “In moments of agony, I envied my fellow slaves for their stupidity” (Douglass 146). The fact that other slaves are content with their lives is what brings awareness to him because he knows that he is stripped of basic human rights. He envies his fellow slaves due to the reason that they are pleased with the life he cannot live to like anymore. Also, he is often wishing he never learned how to read because he doesn’t want to burden about his life. Douglass knows more about the disturbing conditions than most of the slaves around him, but he greatly regrets it. Before he started reading, he lived very much in contentment and now he cannot stand the fact of being
My name is Mukua-kulua (warrior or brave one). My father gave me this name, because I fight everything; I am never scared of nothing. My home is in the kingdom of N’dongo. I was not yet born when some white man, came to my kingdom and start changing, the way that my tribe dressed, eat, talk and teaching how to worship their God. All members of my tribe had to learn these new things, and work for these white men. We were being colonized, as we had to learn and assimilate their habits. After that the white men who lived in my kingdom and my tribe lived all together. They learned some of our rituals, and expertise to hunt and survive in the African savannahs; it was a fusion of the white men habits and my tribe habits. Even though, this was our land there had being secession. The white men dominated our lands with their religion, language, and habits. Soon enough, most of the tribes around us were talking and living like them. We had no idea that our life’s were about to change again; our families were about to be apart, and many of our people were going to be killed, has they were expulse from their home.
Plantation owners in the south hunted for, captured, and enslaved African Americans to do a wide variety of work at the plantations. Even though these slaves would get regularly whipped for arbitrary reasons, the owners and masters believed that it was in the best interest of the slaves to be in slavery. A slave masters wife started teaching a slave by the name of Fredrick Douglass how to read because she believed he would not have gotten the chance to learn if he was not in slavery. Slave masters also knew the slaves had a better live because they had food to eat. They claimed that if the slaves had not been captured or born of a slave family, they would not have had the adequate amount of food to survive. Douglass refutes that humanitarian views towards slavery are wrong by giving his insight on how he was dehumanized by slavery in the following ways: his ability to learn basic life skills, how to care and have a voice for himself and lastly, the gift of happiness.
In the essay “Learning to Read and Write,” Frederick Douglass illustrates how he successfully overcome the tremendous difficulties to become literate. He also explains the injustice between slavers and slaveholders. Douglass believes that education is the key to freedom for slavers. Similarly, many of us regard education as the path to achieve a career from a job.
Slaves were subject to harsh working conditions, malicious owners, and illegal matters including rape and murder. In many instances, slaves were born into slavery, raised their families in slavery, and died within the captivity of that same slavery. These individuals were not allowed to learn how to read, write, and therefore think for themselves. This is where the true irony begins to come into light. While we have been told our entire lives that education and knowledge is the greatest power available to everyone under the sun, there was a point in time where this concept was used to keep certain people under others. By not allowing the slaves to learn how to read, then they were inevitably not allowing the slaves to form free thoughts. One of my favorite quotes is that of Haruki Murakami, “If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, then you can only think what everyone else is thing.” This applied in magnitudes to those who didn’t get to read at all. Not only were these individuals subject to the inability to think outside the box, but for most of these their boxes were based upon the information the slaves owners allowed them to