Lessons Learnt from the Life of Fredrick Douglass

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Lessons Learnt from the Life of Fredrick Douglass
In the article “Fredrick Douglass’s America: Race, Justice, and the Promise of the Founding”, Peter C. Myers postulates that Douglass’ irrepressible faith in America was a hard won achievement that should be commended and celebrated. As a former slave who endured all manner of brutality, humiliation, and a crouching servility to his owners, he had every right to be angry and frustrated with a country that had little regard for him and his fellow slaves. However, Douglass was hopeful and optimistic about America’s unique beginning. He believed that America would one day become a country dedicated to universal principles of justice. Consequently, he became an advocate of change and hope after winning his freedom. In his memoir Narrative of the Life of Fredrick Douglass, he provides valuable lessons that are as important and practical today as they were during the slavery days in America.
The first lesson from his memoir is that ignorance is an effective tool of control. In the narrative, Douglass points out that ignorance was used by White masters to keep African slaves in a perpetual state of psychological darkness. They understood that slaves could easily be controlled if they were deprived of intellectual enlightenment. Slave owners believed that “learning would spoil the best [slave] in the world”, rendering him “unmanageable, and of no value to his master” (Douglass 29). Therefore, they forbade and frustrated all efforts made by slaves to attain any form of literacy. Ignorance is still a major problem today. As a result, many leaders are taking advantage of the high prevalence of ignorance to propagate falsehood, hate, and divisions among their subjects to easily control them.
Second, the narrative reveals that education is the key to freedom. Since ignorance propagates slavery, education and knowledge are the best way to end it. Slaves must attain intellectual enlightenment through education to pursue and achieve their freedom. Douglass understands the importance of education when his master Hugh Auld forbids his wife from teaching him how to read and write. According to Hugh Auld, “[I]f you teach that [slave] how to read, there would be no keeping him. It would forever unfit him to be a slave” (Douglass 29). His master’s comments “called into existence an entirely new train of thought,” and Douglass “understood the pathway from slavery to freedom” was through education (30). Education is as important today as it was during Douglass’ time. It gets rid of ignorance, cultural bias, and superstitious thinking, allowing people to pursue and enjoy ...