Up From Slavery By Booker T. Washington

Throughout this excerpt from his autobiography, Frederick Douglass constantly refers to the importance of Education and Literacy. He continuously details not only that education represented power, but also that an educated and literate slave would be dangerous in the eyes of the slave-loving southerners. Education all throughout time has represented knowledge, and knowledge is seen as power, both of which could easily corrupt someone, hence why slave owners chose to keep slaves in the dark in regards to education. Douglass argued that education was seen as the key to success and free thoughts, however, both were luxuries unknown to a slave unless they took matters into their own hands.

In the passage, “Up From Slavery” by Lauren Tarshis, Booker T. Washington is a passionate believer about the meaning of education for civilization. To begin, he was extremely determined to get to a great school and get the education he knew a slave would have to fight for. Even though he knew that he had to trek for over five hundred miles, take a protracted train ride and spend seventy dollars a year, which was a family opulence, Washington still saved for two years until he could have just enough money to go to the prestigious Hampton Institute. Along with determination and self-confidence, he knew he would never be truly free without an education for himself. He took it to himself and started to educate himself because no one was going

As humans our species has a requirement for knowledge and we are a deeply curious in nature. This is how we have evolved and throughout time with new inventions and new ideals our primitive instincts changed some say for better and others say for the worst. Booker Taliaferro Washington helped African Americans gain the knowledge of literacy that was so long forbidden. Born to a cook for plantation and an ambiguous white man on April 5, 1856, he was just another face among a sea of discriminated,miserable, and oppressed people. Growing up in the Kanawha Valley of West Virginia, in most states prior to the Civil War, the child of a slave was born a slave. Although times were hard whether it was living in the small quarters with his sister, brother, and mother, hearing stories of his ancestors and the torture they endured, or not knowing or being able to console in his father. Washington found his comfort and peace through knowledge. He first discovered education after peeping through the window of a school house near a plantation where he toted 100 pounds of cotton each day. From that moment he knew his calling and wanted to do what children in the school house were doing, but due to the fact it was illegal to teach slaves to read and write. He had to go out and get it on his own.

Frederick Douglass’s book, “The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass”, shows a tough life story about how being educated is the reason that he was able to escape slavery, since learning that being educated would be his pathway out of slavery Douglass did everything in his power to get educated. His old master Ms.Auld was new to being a slave master, and her lack of experience with slaves caused her to make a huge mistake, teaching a slave the alphabet. In response to this Ms.Auld’s husband warned her that teaching a slave to read is illegal. This stopped the lessons from Ms.Auld but Douglass was determined, he did everything in his power to learn to read, he bribed little white boys for books and that was when he was able to discover himself and liberate himself, all of this simply because Douglass overheard Ms.Auld’s husband say “that it is unlawful, as well as unsafe, to teach a slave to read” and that it would make someone“forever unfit to be a slave”(Douglass 41) in other words, receiving an education will allow you to be defined as human which is precisely what Douglass wants.

Education was not readily available for Southern blacks as it was for whites, and Du Bois took notice. In an effort to teach, he was taken aback by “how faithfully, how piteously, this people strove to learn.” (Du Bois, 12) While most African Americans devoted themselves to learning, the information was not presented in an understandable way, and most struggled to even make an advance in basic courses. Du Bois commented that education was a freedom denied to none, and the aggressive pursuit of a higher education was the way of crossing the threshold into equality. In a similar matter, Booker T. Washington praised the school house as a place with equal deliverance as heaven itself. His point of view came through the looking-glass of slavery, being raised a slave himself. As a child, when he carried his mistress’ books to her schoolhouse, he felt that “to get into a schoolhouse and study in this way would be about the same as getting into paradise.”(Washington, 3) Washington,

Education is the key that opens all doors and Douglass knew that in his heart. His master told him that he cannot read and should never be caught reading. Learning would spoil the best nigger in the world… It would forever unfit him to be a slave” (Douglass 945) It is seen here that it is imperative for a slave

Freedom is a word that is thrown around lightly. What was considered freedom now, holds a way different meaning to it than it did when slavery existed. Many people encountered it, endured it, and even participated in the cruel acts. In his essay “How I Learned to Read and Write,” Frederick Douglass expresses the hardships that took place while learning to be literate. In his memoir, he recollects about his encounters with setbacks and risks he exerted while learning. Douglass sacrificed his chance of freedom to understand the thing he desired most: knowledge. A determined student defies the boundaries of formal education.

Knowledge is freedom like nothing else. It can take a small, poor, uneducated slave boy like Booker Taliaferro Washington from slavery to dinner at the White House with the president. Booker didn't have a considerable amount of money, nor did he have educated parents, yet inside of him and with the support of his mother, brother and his community he became very successful. He always had a firm conviction that there was power in education. He felt this conviction even as a young boy who appeared to have no hope of gaining the type of education that he would one day earn. Booker Taliaferro Washington and many other prominent black individuals such as Frederic Douglass, Malcom X, Thurgood Marshall and W.E.B found that literacy was a very powerful

Washington was burdened with much work as a child from laboring in a salt furnace to serving as a houseboy where he was exposed to the importance of cleanliness and order, traits that became a theme throughout his life. After his education at Hampton Institute, an early freedman school of industrial education, he gained respect from northern whites as well as blacks. He pushed the idea that we can all work together but continue to stay separate. Washington became President Roosevelt’s black advisor. His autobiography depicts the importance of self-made men, which was the idea that he pushed to African Americans to overcome their situation.

Concepts, techniques, and ways of thinking can last much longer than their creators. The philosophy of Plato is an example of that. Its ideas can be found in a speech written thousands of years later. In “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?” Frederick Douglass, a former slave, addresses an audience of white abolitionists on July 5th of 1852. He focuses on the disparity between the American values celebrated on the Independence Day and the issue of slavery. To do so, Douglass raises the question of to whom those values apply and explains why and how it should be different. Analyzing Douglass’ effort, we see that he is using arguments that trace back to the ancient Platonic ideas to support his stance on the equally ancient question of citizenship.

According to Malcolm X, the difference between “Black Revolution” and “Negro Revolution” depended on how the people approach the idea of revolution. The Black Revolution defines “revolution” as blood shed, taking over land, and killing innocent people without realizing its full purpose but on religion in four different nations. Because the Black Revolution followed the idea that one wants to take land and power, it does not have a peaceful result because there is “no such thing as a nonviolent revolution…revolution is bloody, revolution is hostile, revolution knows no compromise, revolution overturns and destroys everything that gets in its way” (X, pg 356). In contrast, the Negro Revolution defines “revolution” with similar approach as the

The book 12 years a slave is a very interesting narrative written by Solomon Northup

Education is a key. Not many can find it, but those who do can unlock the door to endless knowledge. Abolitionist leader and American slave, Frederick Douglass, in his autobiography A Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, contemplates the enslavement he endured while emphasizing the importance of education as a key to freedom. Throughout Douglass’s educational awakening and his realization of its overall power, he comes to understand the slaveholder’s evil doings in keeping all slaves trapped in ignorance. Thesis too wordy condense it & briefly incorporate rhetorical strategies he uses (repetition, understatement, imagery, diction, etc).

12 years a slave is a film adaptation of the autobiography by Solomon Northup. The story is about an African American who lives in Saratoga Springs, New York with his family in the 1850’s. He makes his living as an experienced carpenter and a violinist. One night, Solomon is enticed in a gig with two outgoing men. The next day, Solomon finds himself chained up in a cell. Northup realizes that the men drugged and kidnapped him into slavery. Solomon is transported to New Orleans by ferry and giving a new name “Platt”.

Another impact of achieving an education is that it brings knowledge to one’s life. Knowledge is a powerful benefit for people in their understandings. Both Douglass and Malcolm also recognized the power of knowledge that impacted them into following education. With great effort, Malcolm was fascinated with the knowledge he gained “I could for the first time pick up a book and read and now begin to understand what the book was saying”(81). He made a progress in reading to understand the contents of a book even if it is the first time he picked it up. Knowledge also assisted Douglass in finding the injustice of slavery and motivating him to gain his freedom. In the essay “Learning to Read and Write”, he states that “the more I read, the more I was lead to abhor and detest my enslavers. I could regard them in no other light than a band of successful robbers, who had left their home, and gone to Africa, and stolen us from our homes and in a stargerland reduced us to slavery.”(64). He became cognizant of what fate was in hold for the enslavers. That idea impacted him to gain more knowledge and escape slavery to share his knowledge and what must be done. Today, people who want to gain knowledge have to go to school for their education. People that attend are taught the essential lessons that they need in order to move forward in life. Out of everyone in my family, I am the only one given the chance to go to college.