Tribute

"Freedom now appeared, to disappear no more forever. It was heard in every sound, and seen in every thing. It was ever present to torment me with a sense of my wretched condition. I saw nothing without seeing, I heard nothing without hearing it, and felt nothing without feeling it. It looked from every star, it smiled in every calm, breathed in every wind, and moved in every storm."
--Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave

Douglass was born a slave in Maryland circa 1818. At twelve years old he learned from his master--enraged that he should be taught--that reading would make him "unmanageable, and of no value..." Empowered by the revelation that reading was the key to freedom, Douglass proceeded to to do everything in his power to learn. He converted the homeless and hungry white children into his teachers and bribed them to give him "the bread of knowledge." The result, he laments, was just what his master had predicted. He was given "a view of [his] condition without the remedy." He suddenly saw that he was not chattel nor brute, but a thinking man.

Frederick Douglass eventually escaped to freedom in 1838 and became a powerful abolitionist orator and political activist fighting for the emancipation of slaves.

In my American Literature classes we have been reading Douglass' powerful slave narrative. Today we finally got to the chapter in which he learns--through endless determination--to read. Ironically he narrates his path to literacy with sophisticated diction and rhetorically powerful syntax so that his northern audience could not doubt and intelligence and potential of a mere slave. After reading Douglass' experience learning to read, I had my students write a brief literacy narrative--writing down their first memories with the printed word. So many of them could not remember ever not reading. Some even questioned naively if it was possible to be able to speak and not read or write, so much does reading unconsciously effect us. After writing their own memories, we continued to read as he describes the agony it caused him to learn something and feel powerless to change it. He suddenly saw his potential and capacity but did not have the agency to develop it. Freedom, as the above quote indicates, was tauntingly out of reach.

I wonder, do we see with such clarity? For Douglass, reading was the key to accessing life, liberty, and, of course, the pursuit of happiness. It was what finally gave him the courage to stand up--even as a slave--and demand less punishment, to escape, to speak and write and defend emancipation in an emotionally and politically charged "north" despite the fear of being sent back. Do we see education today as such a power? Or do we go dutifully (or, like some students, not so dutifully) to school and endure the hard chairs and endless teachers simply because it is expected? Do we go to high school or college or whatever because society dictates it... or because the thirst for learning drives us? Like Douglass, do we know that our literacy is the key to our potential? Like Douglass, do we refuse to fit a cookie-cutter mold? Like Douglass, do we persevere despite the odds and insurmountable obstacles, the personal agony of not yet seeing the ladder, the personal cost of enduring in what we know to be true? Do we not simply learn to read, but choose to read?

[deep breath!] Ok, I will descend from my soap box and apologize for the passion with which I write... it is the English teacher in me, what can I say? But, today, as we did in my classes, I would like to hold a tribute to Frederick Douglass.