“Learning to Read” by Frederick Douglass
In “Learning to Read” Frederick Douglass wrote the story of his personal experience with one of the most prohibited and dangerous acts that a slave in the pre-Civil War South could do: learning to read. It is a narrative that is both shocking and revealing of insight into the times and place where it took place, the power of the institution and practice of slavery to dictate evil into the hearts of men and women, and of the dedication and strength of the personality of Frederick Douglass. A close reading demonstrates not only Douglass' narrative techniques, but his skills ...