Weekly Blog Post 10/24

In "Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an Amerocan Slave", Douglass speaks about how when he learned from Mr. Hugh that literacy was the key to freedom. There are a few reasons why this is true. The first is that it proved that black people were equal to white people, which in turn made it harder to justify keeping them as slaves. One of the defenses of slavery was that black people were not as capable as white people, so keeping them as slaves actually benefitted them, but when it was made clear that they were just as intelligent, they could no longer be dehumanized. Also, literacy gave slaves a powerful connection to the outside world. Without being able to read and write, they could only communicate with and learn from people they could speak with in person, in other words, people near them. However, once they could read and write, they could educate themselves with books by people from all over the world and, though it would be very difficult to get them sent, write letters to anyone. Finally, literacy allowed slaves to read written works that argued against slavery, which in turn lead them to loathe it and be more passionate than ever about freedom. In short, being able to read and write had a strong connection to freedom for slaves during Douglass's time for many reasons, all of which had to do with the empowerment that came with it.