How They Learned to Read and Write

Two of the more important people in the African American struggle for freedom, equality and respect were Frederick Douglas and Malcolm Little, or as he was more popularly known, Malcom X. Frederick Douglas was born in the early 1800s, during a time when slavery was still common. As a child, Douglas himself became the slave of Hugh Auld, a Baltimore ship carpenter. Auld’s wife began teaching Douglas the fundamentals of reading before she came to the understanding that “education and slavery were incompatible with each other” (Douglas). Nonetheless, Douglas was able to use what he had been taught to teach himself. Eventually, Douglas learned about the abolitionists and the freedom enjoyed by African Americans in the north and “resolved to runaway” when he could “find a good chance” (Douglas). After his successful escape to the north, Douglas was taken in and supported by a number of well-known abolitionists, including William Lloyd Garrison. Over time, Douglas would himself became one of best known and most influential abolitionists in the nation. Malcolm X was born in 1925, in a world that Frederick Douglas struggled to create, namely a world without slavery. However, despite the abolition of slavery, African Americans remained second-class citizens socially, economically and politically. To be sure, anti-Black racism, prejudice and discrimination had the backing of the law. Initially, however, these were not the concerns of Malcom X. After dropping out of school, Malcolm became increasingly involved in the local criminal scene. Eventually, he was arrested, convicted and sent to prison. While in prison, Malcolm slowly began to understand the power of knowledge. He eventually devoted the majority of his time to improve his reading and writing. As a result, when he left prison he was as well read and skilled in writing as if he had graduated college. Despite both Douglas and Malcolm’s thirst to learn how to read and write, both had to overcome serious obstacles to their educations. However, as a result of the intelligence, character and innovative learning methods, they were ultimately able to overcome those barriers. Moreover, the intelligence and character that they used to teach themselves how to read and write, would later prove fundamental to the power and influence that they would eventual hold in their respective abolitionist and civil rights movements.

The key element in both Douglas and Malcolm’s eventual rise above their desperate conditions was their deep and intense desire to learn how to read and write. For Douglas, his early instruction on how to read helped to facilitate his understanding of the world and, give “tongue to interesting thoughts” of his soul (Douglas). Moreover, the more he read the more he understood that he needed to write so that he could put his own words to paper. Similarly, Malcolm who had the chance to learn to read and write in school, did not feel a need to apply himself until after he was jailed and grew to admire the skills that more educated inmates had to “take charge of any conversation” that they were in (Stanford). However, as he tried to emulate them by teaching himself to read, he found that the more important and worthy purpose of reading was in the knowledge that it provided the reader. As Malcolm admitted, being able to read and write, “opened” a new world to him (Stanford). Moreover, Malcolm also grew to understand that writing not only facilitates reading but also thinking.

The main obstacle that prevented Frederick Douglas from having a less difficult path to literacy was the fact that he was a slaves, and slaves were not or should not be allowed to have an education. More specifically, it was the fact that the Aulds, had made the decision to not only stop his lessons but to actively eliminate any chance that he would be able to continue his education. This was especially true of Ms. Auld who Douglas described as becoming “even more violent in her opposition than her husband himself” (Douglas). Accordingly, Douglas was prohibited from reading in their presence.

In order to overcome, this obstacle, Douglas came up with the plan of getting other white children to teach him. He accomplished this in a number of ways including asking for advice, paying them with bread, or engaging in false contests of intelligence that he would lose on purpose to gain new knowledge. In addition, he would also secretly study the texts of the Aulds’ son who was about his age when no one was looking. In this way, Douglas was able to slowly but surely teach himself how to read and write.

Unlike, Douglas, Malcolm had the opportunity to learn; however, he simply did not have an interest to learn at first. He became an adult with only an Eighth grade education. Consequently, when he tried to take up reading again in prison the words “might as well have been in Chinese” (Stanford). The more he tried to read, the more confused he would become about what he was reading.

With no one to teach him, Malcolm figured that the best way for him to understand the many words he did not understand was to read the dictionary. He began by copying down pages of the dictionary then reading to himself what he had written down. On the one hand, this helped increase his literacy as he was able to understand the meaning of the words. On the other hand, it also improved his penmanship and writing ability by copying the words over and over again.

On the one hand, Douglas and Malcolm’s learning experiences were similar in that both began by focusing on reading. For Douglas, this was natural because he had at least been taught the fundamentals of reading and so it was easier for him to start from that element. In the Malcolm’s case, reading was the only means through which he would be able to acquire the knowledge he would need to emulate those inmates he had admired.

On the other hand, Douglas and Malcolm’s learning experiences were different in the availability and accessibility of learning resources. For Douglas, the Aulds actively worked to eliminate any learning materials from him. Accordingly, he had to search out and find materials, including secretly looking at the school books and texts of the Aulds’ son. Conversely, no one was trying to restrict Malcolm from reading. He not only had access to a library, but also was able to receive permission to take our more books than were normally allowed to inmates.

In both cases, Douglas and Malcolm had to rely on their intelligence to overcome obstacles in their paths to learning. In Douglas’ case, his intelligence was exhibited in how he was able to trick or fool other white kids into unwittingly teaching him or through his skills at bartering in offering them bread, which was freely available to him but not to them, for classes.

Malcolm’s character was illustrated in his complete dedication to first improving his reading and writing skills to the point where he could read and understand any book he picked up. Moreover, his dedication was further illustrated in his constant thirst for getting more information by reading more books. Through this dedication, he was able to become a deeply knowledgeable person on many subjects.

One of the consequences of both Douglas and Malcom’s deep desire to read and write were, as mentioned above, development into excellent communicators and the role that it played in their respective civil rights movement. In Douglas’ case, this was illustrated through his reading of the “Columbian Orator” and Sheridan’s speeches (Douglas). These both had tremendous influence on Douglas’ hatred of slavery and the reasons why it was immoral and illegal. Douglas would go on to use his own story of being a slave to inspire other of its immorality. In Malcolm’s case, his ability to improve his reading allowed him to learn much about the history of the world, and more importantly, the history of racism in America, and the “wickedness” of the white man (Stanford). Malcolm was later able to use this knowledge as a persuasive argument to explain why African American should aggressively resist white American as he could point out time in history when and where whites acted in the same aggressive manner to the “black, brown, red and yellow peoples” of the world (Stanford).

What the experiences of both Douglas and Malcolm reveal is that learning in difficult conditions or environments is possible is one has the desire, perseverance, and persistence to overcome obstacles and achieve one’s goals even if it takes longer than expected. Douglas overcame the fact that the Aulds prohibited him from learning by using his network of neighborhood friends to teach him what he did not know. Malcolm, on the other hand did not let the fact that he was in prison stop him from learning but rather used that fact to his advantage. In essence, hey both used what they had to get what they want. The intelligence, skills and character that they exhibited and development to learn and improve upon their reading and writing skills also proved invaluable to them later in life. In essence, the education they received and the learning techniques that they employed were essential to both Douglas’ rise to become the foremost African American abolitionist of his day, and Malcolm ultimate rise to become one of the two most influential African American leaders of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s.

Works Cited

Stanford, J. (2006). “Now and Then: Current Issues in Historical Context.” New York: McGraw Hill.

Douglas, F. “Narratives of the Life of Frederick Douglas, an American Slave.” 19 Jan. 2016. http://www/gibbsmagazine.com/learning%20to%20read.htm