Monday, October 18, 2010
Empowering Myself
In Frederick Douglass narrative of his life he shows how as a slave he in powered his self to overcome slavery. He realized that there was another way of living. His journey started when he left his first master’s house and went to live in Baltimore. His new master’s wife began to teach him to read. When the master found out he made this statement “A nigger should know nothing but to obey his master.... [L]earning would spoil the best nigger to the world. Now if you teach a nigger (speaking of myself) to read, there would be no keeping him” (Douglass 937). This put the first sparks of in his heart and he worked hard to learn to read. His second step came when he experience the cruelty first hand. He obtained knowledge very valuable to him from another slave and did as he told him. When he returned back he found that this knowledge had merit when he fought his master and several others and thrashed them. His thoughts after this were “This battle with Mr. Covey was a turning-point in my career as a slave” (955). Third was when he helped his follow slaves to read and some of them planned to run. The plan was stop but he went back to Baltimore and learned a trade. After some difficulties he started making his own money. At this point he had empowered himself with the assets to make it if freedom was obtained, “I now come to the part of my life during which I planned, and finally succeeded in making, my escape from slavery” (967). Douglass was one of the many black slaves that empowered themselves to accomplish freedom.
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Yes, Fredrick Douglass did empower himself with the ability to read and the manipulative devices to gain the knowledge that he so studiously yearned for. I personally think that this direct pursuit of knowledge was to relieve him from the unjust cruelties of slavery. I can also agree that he did a smart thing in obtaining the knowledge and skill that he would need to insure his remaining a free man: his ability to take care of himself at a later date was within his foreseen future. His propensity to maintain his newfound independence with suitable employment while standing on his own two feet in New Bedford is shown in his narrative as he states “I found employment, the third day after my arrival, in stowing a sloop with a load of oil. It was new, dirty, and hard work for me; but I went at it with a glad heart and a willing hand. I was now my own master. It was a happy moment, the rapture of which can be understood only by those who have been slaves” (Douglass 975). I can imagine that he was ecstatic about keeping his own hard earned money and being able to care for himself and his wife. Any natural man who is married with a family and taking care of their own business by today’s standards is an admirable and exceptional man.
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