Similarities Between Malcolm X And Frederick Douglass

What is the freedom and what is its price? We put in that word a variety of meanings and it depends on not only from the particular single individual but also from whole society and from the historical era in which we live. Two historical films, "Selma"(1994) directed by Ava DuVernay and "Malcolm X" (1992) directed by Spike Lee, which tells about two Afro-American activists and their battles for black people civil rights in the US during the 1960s. The movies “Selma” and “Malcolm X” express the idea of elimination the segregation between black and white using the equalization of civil rights and this theme is conveyed in both films through main protagonists, religion and crowd scenes.

Both Malcolm X and Frederick Douglass educated themselves. Malcolm X was educated till the 8th grade. As for Frederick he wasn’t educated at all. Once Malcolm was in prison he came across an inmate called by the name of Bimbi. Bimbi was a great speaker and a well-educated man which made Malcolm motivated to start how to read and get educated. Malcolm read books in prison but did not understand what the book was about. Malcolm got ahold

First of all, both Frederick Douglass and Nat Turner has a lot of similarities. Both were well-educated slaves, and education helped them to be different from other slaves. In fact, while learning to read and write, Douglass understood his real life of being a slave because he could develop his imagination and interpret what was happening around him. For example, at the end of the chapter two of his book “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, Written by Himself”, Douglass mentioned the slave song that he sang with other slaves when they were going to the Great House Farm which is the Colonel Lloyd’s plantation. When Douglass was a slave, he could not understand the real meaning of the song; however, when he grew up

During the time of 1858, tension was high and many people were frustrated about the idea of slavery in Illinois. Two people that seemed to be caught in the middle of several feuds were Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas. Lincoln and Douglas were battling for a seat in the Illinois Senate. In seven debates they stated their opinion on the main topic at the time, which was slavery. Lincoln thought the idea of slavery was unjust and wanted to give slaves the same rights others had.

The themes of Suffering and hope can be found in both, The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglass and “To Build to Fire” by Jack London. These stories are both about a man that is going through harsh conditions, and many obstacles to accomplish a goal. Douglass and London use two specific symbols to represent the common themes of suffering and hope. Both Douglass and London try to show the audience the amount of pain that their main character has to go through. In, The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Douglass constantly uses blood to portray the excessive amount of pain that he went through and saw people go through during his time in Baltimore.

1. Douglass taught himself how to read and write. At first, Douglass’s mistress taught him how to read the alphabet before her husband prohibited her from doing this. After that he started to teach himself how to read by reading books and newspapers, and how to write by copying his little Master Thomas’s written in the spaces left in the copy-book when his mistress goes to the class meeting every monday afternoon. However his most successfully way of teaching himself how to read was to make friends with the white boys whom he met in the street. He bribes them with food to get them to teach him. He also learned how to read and understand the meaning of the name on the timber.

Malcom X once said, “Education is the passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to those who prepare for it today.” This quotation means that education is an important thing, and we should prepare for our future. Fredrick Douglass and Malcom X are two different men who write similar aspects. Fredrick Douglass is a slave, and Malcom X is a criminal, both were deprived of obtaining a higher sense of education. They are two activists who grew up to realize the importance of an education, in reading and writing. In Frederick Douglas’s essay “Learning to Read and Write” and Malcolm’s “Learning to Read” one can compare and contrast the analysis both essays.

In the narrative excerpt “Learning to Read and Write” (1845), which originally came from the autobiography Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Frederick Douglass recapitulates his journey into the coming of literacy that shifts his point to how slavery really is. Douglass develops and supports his main idea by providing a flashback of his own experience as a slave learning to read and write and through dialogue with rhetorical appeals, such as ethos, pathos, and logos. Douglass’ apparent purpose is to retell his story of the obstacles he faced to finally become a free man to guide and prompt other fellow slaves to finally take action for their freedom; he also wants to establish a foundation in which people of higher power, such as abolitionists, are more aware of the slavery situation. The intended audience for this excerpt is the general public of the time consisting of fellow slaves, slave owners, and abolitionists; the relationship Douglass establishes with the audience is equivalent to a news reporter and the people receiving the message—he exposes the truth to them.

Frederick Douglass, “Learning to Read and Write”, Malcolm X, “Learning to Read”. How does one compare the struggles between them. First off Mr. Douglass, “Learning to Read and Write” is not truly comparable with any of the other reading options, and to force comparisons would belittle Mr. Douglass's struggles to do so. Every other reading option had to endure unfair treatment and racism but no one was born into slavery as Mr. Douglass was. Whereas every other reading option had access to underfunded and unequal schools, Mr. Douglass was not afforded these options so order to learn he had to hide it for fear of being beat or killed. “I lived in Master Hugh's family about seven years. During this time, I succeeded in learning to read and write. In accomplishing this, I was compelled to resort to various stratagem”(Douglass 1). Mr. Douglass not only wanted to learn but had a deep driving need to learn for it was his only route to escape slavery. “I resolved to run away. I looked forward to a time at which it would be safe for me to escape. I was too young to think of doing so immediately; besides, I wished to learn how to write,as I might have occasion to write my own pass. I consoled myself with the hope thatI should oneday find a good chance” (Douglass 3). Mr. Douglass not only had to overcome being a slave for life but had a deep distrust for others thinking they would betray him ”for I feared they might be treacherous.White men have been known to

In the excerpt “Learning to Read” from his 1965 Autobiography, Malcolm X argues that he had more opportunity to learn about the world and specifically black history in prison than he would have received in a formal education setting. He describes the process in which he essentially taught himself how to read and write, and how it lead to an awakening of his desire to learn everything he could through voracious reading. X illustrates to the reader the painful histories that he read about and the powerful knowledge which he gained to show that one needs little more than access to a book collection and the motivation to learn in order to become educated. This reading resonated with me as a learner whose love for independent learning often takes a backseat to the demands of academia and provides a key concept which I plan to instill in my students as a future teacher.

The subject matter of both excerpts can be easily compared. It seems like Malcolm X went through a lesser version of what Frederick went through. Both writers access to a sense of freedom when they began learning how to read and write. It is obvious that Malcolm would spend a portion of his excerpt talking about the time he spent in jail while Douglass would talk about the burdens of slavery. Learning how to read and write was like a forbidden apple to both writers. So getting that first bite opened their eyes to all the things around them that the whites tried to conceal. Frederick Douglass had spent his early years in slavery and the harsh conditions of slavery cannot in be compared to jail, where everyone (black or white) is treated like a criminal. Both writers, Malcolm X and Frederick Douglass both use similar yet different subject matters in their excerpts.

In the excerpt “Learning to Read and Write”, Frederick Douglass talks about his experiences in slavery living in his masters house and his struggle to learn how to read and write. Frederick Douglass was an African American social reformer, orator, writer, and statesman. Some of his other writings include “The Heroic Slave”, “My Bondage and My Freedom”, and “Life and Times of Frederick Douglass”. In this excerpt, Frederick Douglass uses an empathic tone, imagery, certain verb choice, contrast, and metaphors to inform African Americans of how important it is to learn to read and write and also to inform a white American audience of the evils of slavery. I find Frederick Douglass to

“The goal of education is not to increase the amount of knowledge but to create the possibilities for a child to invent and discover, to create men who are capable of doing new things” (Jean Piaget).

Throughout the history of slavery in the United States, it was common practice not only for slaveholders to neglect to teach their slaves to read or write, but also for them to outright forbid literacy among slaves. This was done in order to limit the slaves knowledge and modes of communication, making it more difficult for them to learn about the abolitionist movement or for for them to share their situation with the world outside of slavery. Like many other slaves, Frederick Douglass was not allowed to learn to read or write. In his autobiography; “The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass”, Douglass retells how he managed to become literate in a time where most African Americans were forbidden from literacy, and how this knowledge allowed him to eventually escape slavery.

Douglass was motivated to learn how to read by hearing his master condemn the education of slaves. Mr. Auld declared that an education would “spoil” him and “forever unfit him to be a slave” (2054). He believed that the ability to read makes a slave “unmanageable” and “discontented” (2054). Douglass discovered that the “white man’s power to enslave the black man” (2054) was in his literacy and education. As long as the