The Profit of Knowledge

Had Thomas Nast been laid off by Harper's Weekly, we never would have had such powerful cartoons as this 1867 illustration, "The Georgetown Election," which mocked President Andrew Johnson's (left) stance on suffrage based on race.

Fredrick Douglass was born a slave and through relentless pursuits reaches his life’s achievement of education and freedom. After tasting the refreshing nectar of knowledge he became adamant about learning how to read. Douglass knew within himself that this would be his ticket to freedom: his vow to himself was to obtain the knowledge necessary that would release him from the bondage of slavery at all costs. After Mr. Auld chastised his wife for teaching Fredrick his alphabets, he came to a certain realization and this is shown as he states “I now understand what had been to me a most perplexing difficulty – to wit, the white man’s power to enslave the black man…. I understood the pathway from slavery to freedom” (Douglass 937). His quest for knowledge and freedom became his immediate and ulterior goal. Not only was Douglass teaching himself through tactful manipulation how to read, but also he began to share what he had learned with the other slaves. His compassion for his fellow slave brothers and sisters is depicted in his role as their teacher and friend. He sees himself as one of them and he speaks of their love for one another at the close of school each Sunday. Douglass expresses an unselfish desire to empower them with knowledge and this is seen as he states “They came because they wished to learn. Their minds had been starved by their cruel masters. They had been shut up in mental darkness. I taught them, because it was the delight of my soul to be doing something that looked like bettering the condition of my race” (Douglass 959,960). Here is a firm display of betterment; of one’s self along with one’s own community.