Doing Wrong for The Right Reasons There used to be a time where men, women, and people of color were not treated equally. Before a time of equality, women, and people of color, had little to no rights and were restricted within their society. Frederick Douglass and Emmeline Pankhurst knew that their society did not favor people of color or women and, would go on to fight for equal rights for the rest of their lives. Both Pankhurst and Douglas choose to break the law to bring attention to people’s natural rights and defend them. Frederick Douglass was born in 1818 and accomplished many different things throughout his entire life. Of the many things he did and was, he was a very big supporter of women’s rights and equal rights. It is argued …show more content…
Douglass was not aware of who his father was or even when his birthday was and figured out at an early age that, that was typical information for a kid to know. “The white children could tell their ages. I could not tell why I ought to be deprived of the same privilege.” (Douglass, 1.1). It left Douglass uneasy knowing that people were treated differently based on the color of their skin and Douglass would go on to bring the idea of race consciousness into existence. After writing Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, people would slowly get an idea of the harsh and shameful lives that slaves lived. This would be the start to a life-long protest of natural rights and a call to America asking them to live up to their Declaration of Independence and show the world that the slave system dehumanizes people. “I have found that, to make a contented slave, it is necessary to make a thoughtless one. It is necessary to darken his moral and mental vision, and, as far as possible, to annihilate the power of reason. He must be able to detect no inconsistencies in slavery; he must be made to feel that slavery is …show more content…
There were many different things that Pankhurst wanted to bring attention to and fight for but her key issues focused on voting rights for women, fair trials, and taxation. Pankhurst felt that in Britain, women were not being treated equally and were deserving of more rights within their society. It took up until the death of Pankhurst in 1928 for women to have the same rights as men. “Ever since my girlhood, a period of about 30 years, I have belonged to organizations to secure for women that political power which I have felt was essential to bringing about those reforms which women need.” (Pankhurst, 1). During this time in society, women were viewed as incapable of fending for themselves and that they could not make their own, beneficial life decisions. After the passing of her husband, Pankhurst was left with four children, three daughters and a son, and would be responsible for raising and educating them. Whenever Pankhurst would write her poor law guardian to ask for money for basic necessities to raise her children and to pay her daughter’s way through school, she would be denied any money because the guardian felt as if putting the money towards the daughters education was a waste of money and resources. She thought that it was wrong that only married women had suffrage rights, that men and women did not receive equal pay, or that it was only right men and
In the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Douglass reveals several inhumane practices of slavery. He gives great description of the many horrors and evils of this practice along with the damaging effects slavery had on both slaves and slaveholders. During this period, ignorance was the most beneficial tool used to keep slaves ignorant and out of touch with reality. Along with robbing slaves of their identity and keeping them in the dark about basic facts about themselves, slaveholders also used false religion to justify treatment of the slaves. Lastly, Douglass describes the injustice and inhumane suffering and beatings amongst the slaves by white men without them ever having consequences.
In the beginning of Fredrick Douglass 's autobiography, he emphasizes how white children and slave children are treated in very different ways. For example, in the text it states that white children could tell their ages and they know when their birthday is. But on the other hand, slave children were completely opposite, they did not know their age or their birthday, because they are deprived of that information by their masters because they wanted to keep the slaves ignorant. He also emphasizes that he cares about who his father is because, according to the text, it states that there are rumors of his father being a white man and there are ideas of Douglass 's master being his birth father. Douglass emphasizes, that how when children are
It would be hard to think about a society in which human beings would bring down other human beings and prevent them from making progress. However, this was the reality in the United of States of America during slavery. For years and generations, slaves and people of color had to endure this harsh reality. Slaves owners and anti-abolitionists have denied education, voting rights, and used religion as a means to keep slaves and people of color oppressed.
The whisper that my master was my father, may or may not be true; and, true or false, it is of but little consequence to my purpose whilst the fact remains, in all its glaring odiousness, that slaveholders have ordained, and by law established, that the children of slave women shall in all cases follow the condition of their mothers; and this is done too obviously to administer to their own lusts, and make a gratification of their wicked desires profitable as well as pleasurable; for by this cunning arrangement, the slaveholder, in cases not a few, sustains to his slave the double relation of master and father” (947). “Douglass ' Narrative begins with a few facts about his birth and his parentage. Douglass father is a slave owner and his mother is a slave named Harriet Bailey. When Douglass
Both King and Douglass were advocating for the same thing: their constitutional sanction of freedom. Both men, in their respective letters touch upon parallel thoughts and beliefs that revolve around the much bigger topic of racial inequality and discrimination. Both men were discriminated against and they talk about their experiences and plight in their very distinctive yet special styles. Born in the year 1817, in an era of open and unashamed slave trade, Frederick Douglass’s story begins as a serf to Mrs. Hugh in the city of Maryland.
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
Douglass uses his Narrative to share his position is by telling his audience how unfairly Douglass is treated and how white men or slaveholders take control of the life of a slave because in the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass on page 1 paragraph 1 it says, The nearest estimate I can give makes me now between twenty-seven and twenty-eight years of age. I come to this, from hearing my master say, some time during 1835, I was about seventeen years old.” What this piece of evidence is demonstrates is that Frederick Douglass did not even now his own birth and that he had to guess on what his master said and that his master knows more what Frederick knows about his life. Another way that Douglass’s uses his Narrative to share his position is by telling their audience how unfairly Frederick and many other slaves were treated because because in the Document “‘ Pro Slavery Arguments South’’ on paragraph 6 it says,”Southern slaveholders pro-slavery arguments defended the interest of the plantation owners against attempts by abolitionists, lower classes, and non-whites to institute a more equal social structure.”
Douglass tells about his own childhood and how his father might have been a slaveholder. He explains
In “The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass”, Douglass narrates in detail the oppressions he went through as a slave before winning his freedom. In the narrative, Douglass gives a picture about the humiliation, brutality, and pain that slaves go through. We can evidently see that Douglass does not want to describe only his life, but he uses his personal experiences and life story as a tool to rise against slavery. He uses his personal life story to argue against common myths that were used to justify the act of slavery. Douglass invalidated common justification for slavery like religion, economic argument and color with his life story through his experiences torture, separation, and illiteracy, and he urged for the end of slavery.
Frederick Douglass was an African American social reformer, abolitionist, orator, writer, and statesman. Douglass wrote the novel “The Narrative Of The Life Of Frederick Douglass” which depicted his life as a slave and enticed his ambition to become a free man. This novel helped form the big abolitionist movement. In the chapters of this novel, it explains important details like how he first learned to read and write, stays at different plantations, later in life events, leading up to his freedom.
Abolitionism was a well-known movement around the time of the Civil War and its aim was to put an end to slavery. The people of the early nineteenth century viewed the elimination of slavery in numerous ways. Some fought against the end of slavery, some appeared to mildly support the cause and yet others wholeheartedly supported the ending of slavery until their dying day. Charles Finney was a religious leader who promoted social reforms such as the abolition of slavery. He also fought for equality in education for women as well as for African Americans.
It was an enormous social change for women to take part in public decision making, and gave them a voice to abolish unjust laws. The suffragettes in Australia argued that they were intelligent enough to vote, that it was unfair for them to be taxed without representation, and that they were equal to men therefore should have equal rights. In contrary, the suffragettes’ opponents alleged that women already had indirect power through manipulating their husbands and father’s voting choices at the ballot box, that women were equal but different and that women could not fulfil the duties of citizenship therefore should not vote. The suffragettes encouraged people to sign their petition, as well as held meeting and debates in order to gain supporters. Women in Australia used civil methods of protest, and didn’t adapt the more radical methods used by suffragettes in other countries.
Douglass points to the vast unwillingness from the group of whites that refuses to fully perceive and accept African-Americans as deserving and equal citizens of the nation. Based on his personal experiences as a slave, Douglass is abundantly aware that the battle to abolish slavery is not an easy task. For the first twenty years of his life, he witnessed firsthand the abject cruelty of that institution in our country. Tactfully, Douglass seizes this opportunity to publicly highlight the unmerited and coarse differences in the treatment between the whites as opposed to the blacks living in the United States during this time period. He makes a “powerful testaments to the hypocrisy, bigotry and inhumanity of slavery” (Bunch 1).
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.
In the speech "Freedom or Death" (1913), Emmeline Pankhurst expresses the need for resistance towards American and British Governments as a result of the state 's denial of women 's voting rights. She describes the suffragist movement 's efforts of civil disobedience as a result of gender inequality and the urgent need to fight for women 's rights as human rights. In the speech, she discusses the significance of the term ‘militant’, an attribute suffrage women were given based on their radical actions during this time. Suffrage women were described as militant due to their confrontational reactions and support for women’s rights which was sometimes perceived to be an unfavourable political cause. Many at this time, negatively applied the term ‘militant’ to the suffrages.