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Frederick Douglass: What Makes A Hero?

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A man named Christopher Reeve once said, “I think a hero is an ordinary individual who finds the strength to persevere and endure in spite of overwhelming obstacles”. As Reeve said, any ordinary person can become a hero when they withstand both the mental and physical challenges of life. Unlike what most believe, heroes aren’t always the people you read about in comics who wear capes and have unrealistic superpowers, but are those who go beyond the ordinary and become the extraordinary. Heroism can be found in your average person who is willing to do what’s right when others won’t and are those who stay devoted to the task at hand, however they don’t give up when things get tough. Going beyond the call of duty and what’s expected, to do what’s …show more content…

Frederick Douglass was a black man who not only risked his life to escape slavery, but spoke out during anti-slavery meetings. Douglass, instead of letting his fears of getting caught cause him to give up, stayed strong and ran from the chains of slavery. When safely in New York, a free state, he was asked to speak and take part in the “Liberator” meetings, an anti-slavery group. After he was urged to speak, he agreed reluctantly because he still felt like “a slave and the idea of speaking to white people weighed” him down (Douglass Narrative). As written above, Frederick Douglass did not let his fear of speaking or fear of getting caught let him give up, but instead kept moving forward and faced the challenges head-on. Another man who never gave up on something important was Ang Lee. He was a man who was going through a very tough time, yet still didn’t give up on his dreams of screenwriting. Before Lee was an award-winning film director, screenwriter, and producer, he had just sent in some scripts and was in a very rough spot when he said, “That was the lowest point in my life. We’d just had our second son, and when I went to collect them from the hospital, I went to the bank to try and get some money to buy some diapers. The screen showed I had $26 left”. Lee kept fighting to get money for his family and also never gave up on his dreams. Both of these men never gave up when challenges were thrown into their path of success and in the end, did great things including becomes true

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