Narrative Of The Life Of Frederick Douglass Education Essay

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In “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave”, Frederick Douglass emphasizes the importance of education in empowering the oppressed and ending discrimination. He accomplishes this by outlining his struggle to freedom through education. Frederick Douglass believed that all people are created equal, but also believed that we weren't just born free, we have to make ourselves into who we are. Giving this, education and self-improvement were incredibly important to him. It is evident throughout Douglass’s work he believes the discrimination in access to education gave the white slaveholders an dominance and superiority over slaves. Douglass came to this assimilation when Mr Auld, one of his owners, scolded his wife for teaching him the alphabet because “learning would spoil the best nigger in the world” (27). Mr Auld’s intensity against his will to learn and education convinced Douglass that reading was a skill worth pursuing. Douglass experienced “a new and special revelation” to the point that he understood “the pathway from slavery to freedom” was education (27). Douglass emphasized that, “the more I read, the more I was led to abhor and detest my enslavers” (31). Douglass, having being born into slavery, knew …show more content…

An example of continued oppression in today’s society is the discrimination faced by the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender LGBT community. Even though the situation this community has to face is completely different from that of slaves in the 1800s, it is still very interesting that there are still large groups of people facing large amounts of discrimination and hatred. I believe that society has made contributions in terms of respecting human rights since the end of slavery but somehow there is still a widespread of oppression still happening,

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