The Ability to Read

They say that knowledge is power. And they’re right. Knowledge IS power. It awakens the conscience and lets humans understand the world and the context they live in. Without knowledge, humans would not have the capacity to learn or capability to accomplish great feats that have furthered mankind. However, what is key to the process is the transfer of knowledge, because no matter how knowledgeable one man is, it means nothing if he cannot transfer that information to other men and make a difference in the society they live in. For Frederick Douglass, this knowledge, this consciousness and understanding, was transferred to him through learning the ability to read.

Born into slavery around 1817 or 1818, Douglass first worked on a large plantation called the “Great House Farm” and later on was traded to many different slave-owners, including Mr. Hugh Auld in Baltimore. While there, Sophia Auld, Hugh’s wife, who never had slaves before, was kind to Douglass at first and even began to teach him how to read, until her husband ordered her to stop, saying that education makes slaves unmanageable. At this point, even though Sophia stopped teaching Douglass, he was still able to learn by himself with the help of local boys. By being able to read, Douglass was able to learn. And through learning knowledge, Douglass was able to eventually escape to the North and leave slavery behind.

Prior to reading, Douglass only knew of the horrid life he had as a slave. In general, white slaveholders perpetuated slavery by keeping slaves ignorant, as many people then believed that blacks were intrinsically incapable of amounting to anything other than slavery. Douglass was kept ignorant of the basic details of his life, such as his birth date or father, as he was born as a result of a white slaveholder raping his slave mother. Essentially, slaves were taught to be slaves, not humans. By keeping slaves ignorant, slaveholders robbed them of their individual identities. By keeping slaves uneducated, slaveholders were able to prevent slaves from getting a sense of self-sufficiency and capability. Slaveholders knew that literate slaves would question authority and understand that there could be more to their lives than just slavery. Finally, by keeping slaves illiterate, slaveholders were able to control what knowledge could be transferred to the rest of America; if slaves could not read or write, they would never be able to tell their sides of the slavery story.

Thus, this transfer of knowledge, this communication of information, is very powerful indeed. It has the ability to shape America’s story. Certainly if Frederick Douglass had not learned how to read, his story would have never come to light. Douglass himself would have never been able to escape. By being able to read, he was able to become knowledgeable about his situation. He recognized the injustice of slavery to himself and to others, and realized that he is a man, not just a slave. This ability to read brought Douglass light and awakens his consciousness, which in turn actually brought him suffering. By becoming literate, he began to have a greater understanding of the world around him and was able to make a great change in his society.

Douglass escaped from slavery and used his power of reading and writing to contribute to the abolitionist, or anti-slavery, movement that was gaining momentum in the North. In the early 1840s, when Douglass first arrived in Massachusetts, he began reading the Liberator, and abolitionist newspaper edited by William Lloyd Garrison. In 1841, he met Garrison at an abolitionist meeting, at which he told his slavery story, and as a result became an abolitionist speaker for the American Anti-Slavery Society. In 1845, he wrote narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, Written by Himself, not only an account of his personal experiences as a slave, but also an essay that argues against slavery. This work showed Douglass’ ability to transfer knowledge through writing, and without learning how to read and write, he would not have been able to write his own narrative and tell the slavery story from the viewpoint of a slave. The book became an instant bestseller in 1845, and Douglass even started his own abolitionist newspaper in 1847 named North Star. Douglass continued to write and campaign for equality and black suffrage. He wrote more books, My Bondage and My Freedom in 1855 and The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass in 1881. His Narrative emerged in many other slave narratives and slavery fictions, such as Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin and Harriet Jacobs’s Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. Even in current times, Douglass’s work is read today as one of the finest examples of the slave-narrative genre.

To have gone from illiteracy to becoming an influential writer and narrator who helped the abolitionist movement, Douglass indeed put his knowledge of learning to use. He showed how powerful the transfer of knowledge could be. A few short lessons from Sophia Auld got him started on his quest of learning how to read, and he pursued that powerful skill, eventually breaking his bondage from slavery and writing works and giving speeches that promoted his cause to end slavery. To Frederick Douglass, knowledge is power, and that knowledge was transferred from one of the most important skills any human could have: the ability to read.