Joy Cartwright

January 27th, 2016

C- block
Fredrick Douglass Essay
Knowledge is the Pathway to Freedom
It is not light that we need, but fire; it is not the gentle shower,
but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquakeFrederick Douglass. Fredrick Douglass was a man born into the
adversity of slavery. With everything against him and nothing for him,
Fredrick Douglass was able to triumph against the chains that held him
down and emerged a free man. A person is motivated to make a major
change in their lives when they experience a significant event that
changes the persons previous views or pushes them to their braking
point.
A person can only grow and make changes to their own life by
experiencing life; the good and bad, and in the end, these trials and
tribulations is what molds a person into an individual. I have seen a
man whip a woman, causing the blood to run half an hour at the time;
and this, too, in midst of her crying children pleading for their mothers
relies. He seemed to take pleasure in manifesting his fiendish
barbarity. (Chapter 2, page 18) The experience of watching this
barbaric beating of an innocent, and helpless, black woman has left a
significant impression in the mind of Fredrick Douglass and other
slaves that have experienced similar cruelty. It leaves an over all

impression of disparity for a better life in a situation that seems

utterly hopeless. For some people like Fredrick Douglass, this sparks a
fire that has been lying underneath the surface for years. These
underline experiences are what makes up who Fredrick Douglass is as
a person, and it is one of the factors that drives him to make such a
change in his life.
The life of Fredrick Douglass was not an easy one as he was
beaten, mistreated, and abused his entire life as a slave; however, his
breaking point did not come until Hugh Auld denied him the
opportunity to read. If you give a nigger an inch, he will take an ell. A
nigger should know nothing but to obey his master- to do as he is told
to do. Learning would spoil the best nigger in the world. Now, if you
teach that nigger how to read, there will be no keeping him. It would
forever unfit him to be a slave (chapter 6, page 31). In most cases,
the constant physical and oral abuse brought on by the slaveholders,
cases slaves to detach themselves from humanity. The tole of the
physiological and metal abuse weighing on their soles. Causing them
to truly believe that they are less then human, and should deserve
nothing less. However, some people like Fredrick Douglass refuse to let
that be a part of their identity. This moment is one of the most pivotal
moments in Fredrick Douglasss life. It will become engraved in his
mind, as the moment that changed everything. It was in these few
minutes that an inner drive erupted inside him; the drive to pull

himself from the sums of slavery into freedom, and this is only egged
on by the inner drive that steers within himself.
The motivation to make a major change stems from an
experience a significant event that changes the persons previous
views or and pushes them to their braking point carousing them to
push themselves far past what they previously thought was their limits.
A person can never truly tell how strong they are until they are pushes
to their limits and take a leap of faith that challengers everything in
that persons life. For Fredrick Douglass the pathway to freedom was
threw learning to reading, and gathering knowledge that showed him
the possibility of a whole new world, where blacks could be free from
the whip, and chains that that held them back. Frederick Douglass
taught that literacy is the path from slavery to freedom. There are
many kinds of slavery and many kinds of freedom, but reading is still
the path. Carl Sagan