Comparing Frederick Douglas And Richard Wright's Path To Freedom

For years and years, African-American people spent their time in the fields against their will, the boiling heat of the sun looming above. Something needed to be done. Multiple people, including Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass stepped up to the plate in an attempt to prohibit slavery. While Frederick Douglass did a lot to support the abolishment of slavery, Abraham Lincoln’s method of support had a bigger impact with more results, thus being superior.

In the passage of Fetching Water William’s father and him stopped at a spring for water. There were white people in front of them so they waited,when it was William father turn two white grabbed him and told him “when all the good white people have gotten their water,and when everyone is gone,then you can do what you want to”. That explained how he had to wait for water just because of his skin. Governor Wallace of mississippi was an act of real hatred and prejudice when he didn’t let two black stundents attended Old Miss in Mississippi. When the father of William said “there’s gonna come a day when this won’t be anymore”. J.F Kennedy and his speech explained what William’s father meant. His speech changed a lot of eyes of whites and blacks.

By April 1865, most knew that the South had lost the war. As a result, white Northerners and Southerners as well as free blacks and freed slaves began to assert their own ideas of freedom. The North, the South and freed slaves all have a different view of the word “freedom”.

Frederick Douglas six years old and living with his grandmother. Young Frederick is taken from his home to work at one the biggest plantations to become a slave on the Eastern Shore. he is now suffering Chronic Hunger and needs food. Frederick Douglas had a bigger impact on African-American Rights. Frederick Douglas was one of the first African-American slaves to speak against slavery. The reasons Frederick Douglas had a bigger impact on African-American rights is because he was the first to speak against slavery, he plotted to escape slavery, and was the strongest in the long run.

Douglas believed that the nation can be existed forever as half slave and half free. The reason he believed so was because the founding father formed. The founding father formed was basically the people that were on the lands from the begging before the slaves. Douglas said that if the slavery was in the territory from the begging in because the founders that did not stop it from being exist or spread over other lands. Douglas declared “it was the policy of its founders to prohibited the spread of slavery into the new territory.” Douglas tried to blame the founders that because of them the slavery existed and the people that now on the lands do not need to take care of it. Douglas asked the question “why can’t we let it stand as our fathers

Life was hard back in the late 1800's through 1900's, but only for certain races. While reading Richard Wright's “The Ethic of Living Jim Crow”, he talked about the different things that people of color went through. He would endear the white guys mistreating him because he was black. Richard Wright tried to show the world that life with whites mistreating blacks. All while trying to prove that Slavery was abolished back in the 1800s, but white people still felt like they shouldn't be welcome to do and act like they were free.

In a quest to acquire knowledge, Frederick Douglass and Richard Wright faced an obstacle, which comprise of society’s restriction of knowledge to African Americans. African Americans were restricted from attaining knowledge during slavery and the Jim Crow Laws because many Whites believed if African Americans were educated, Blacks would outsmart them.

Frederick Douglass, originally Frederick Bailey, was born into slavery in or around 1818 in Talbot County, Maryland, though Douglass himself was never sure of his exact date of birth. While his mother came from Native American descent, his father came from African and European descent. Until the age of six where he was sent to live and work on the Wye House Plantation, Douglass lived with his maternal grandmother, after his mother left him. Initially, Douglass was given to Lucretia Auld, but then Thomas Auld, her husband, sent him to Baltimore with his brother, Hugh. At Baltimore, Hugh's wife taught Douglass how to read and write. Soon, he taught himself more and began teaching other slaves. As a result, Douglass was sent to Edward Covey who

Baldwin writes, “It was almost always my mother who dealt with them, for my father’s temper, which was at the mercy of his pride, was never to be trusted. It was clear that he felt their very presence in his home to be a violation: this was conveyed by his carriage, almost ludicrously stiff, and by his voice, harsh and vindictively polite.” By that, Baldwin meant Wright’s father thought that white people could not be trusted because of what he had gone through in the past. The way white people treated him planted a seed within him. Baldwin even wrote that the father’s legacy was, “nothing is ever escaped,” and the realization meant that the father would never be able to treat everybody equally.

Throughout the years slaveholders made claims that justified why the institution of slavery was acceptable, however, many abolitionist made claims that differed the majority opinion. Abolitionist began to publicize stories advocating truths about this institution. Fredrick Douglas and Solomon Northrup shared their life stories where they exposed their experiences as slaves in the Southern world.Slaves holders make several arguments to justify slavery, meanwhile, slaves themselves completely disagree with all the things the masters claim. Violence versus paternalism, true christianity and hypocritical christianity, and the role knowledge and ignorance and whether slaves are truly happily plays are all powerful ideas in both sides convey .

Frederick Douglas was born into slavery in the state of Maryland. He believes that his father was his master and he knows that his mother was forced to go somewhere else because of his birth. This didn’t stop the fact that she would risk herself for him by seeing him at night when he was a child. He didn’t know anything about himself and as he grew older he realized all the things that symbolize African Americans are terrible. He knew nothing of his family and wasn’t even told that his mother had pasted. When he was with Colonel Lloyd he witnessed for the first time, an overseer whipping an enslaved African American. This would change his life and how he wanted so badly to become free. Douglas began to hate the idea that the folklore and songs

Douglass’s narrative could be described as similar to the praise he heaps on Stowe’s novel. Douglass’s narrative definitely “exalted sense of justice”, as he talks about trying to gain an education and become free. Douglass in his narrative talks about how becoming educated could set slaves free. He reads a book about slavery and soon realizes that it is not right and that it does not have to be tolerated. In educating his self about slavery Douglass finally works up the courage to escape. He talks about keeping his own wages and how it wasn’t working out anymore so he planned his second escape to New York in which he successfully completed and he then lived as a free man and eventually became a speaker on slavery. These accomplishments all

In the early 19th century, slavery was legal and popular in the southern states, among these slaves, one slave in particular impacted the 19th century was Frederick Douglass. Although he was a slave for most of his life, Douglass eventually became a freeman, a social reform, writer, and an abolitionist for slavery. However, before he became a freeman, Douglass experienced a brutal life as a slave. He faced dehumanization in his early life, but accomplished what most slaves we not allowed to do; which is getting educated, by self-educating himself and retaliating against the idea of slavery. Furthermore, since he self-educated himself, he was able to published the narrative, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglas; which, Douglass shows the audience how methods such as, physical abuse, psychological abuse, and lack of education were used to dehumanize slaves. He describes how he resisted these methods and realized that whites who participated in slavery themselves were being dehumanized.

Richard Nathaniel Wright was born September 4th, 1908 in Roxie, Mississippi. Born into a family of salves and sharecroppers, his life was not easy growing up. As a young child he experienced many hard times; such as the harsh racial discrimination between whites and blacks, as well as segregation amongst him and his own race. Once he grew older he became a man of many talents such as writing poems, novels, and even short stories. Mostly everything he wrote about was based off things he experienced as a child and teen growing up in Mississippi. His publishing’s gave a very pessimistic view towards racial relations.

Colonel Lloyd – Known as the richest slave holder in Talbot. Thought to have owned 1,000 slaves. He a rival slave owner to Douglass’s master.