Literacy is a fundamental skill that all people, regardless of race or social class, need to develop in order to convey ideas and communicate them intellectually. But two hundred years ago, learning to read and write was not a privilege. During this time, and even today, many factors play a role in determining the difficulty of reaching literacy, such as the time period a person lived and where, the color of their skin, and even what determined or denied their basic rights as human beings could restrict their education. Both Frederick Douglass and Malcolm X—African American men raised in societies where white men are predominant and where it is challenging for them to find a pathway to education if it was allowed in the first place—share little in common when the course of their individual development of literacy is compared. Douglass tells the story of his pursuit of knowledge in “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave,” and Malcolm X details his own exploration of literacy in “Learning to Read.” Throughout the courses of their development as readers and writers, Douglass and Malcolm X discover their personal motivations to learn and explore methods to obtain their self-education, and once they achieve it, they reflect on the information that literacy presents to them. Even though these men grow up in different time periods, they both share the history equivalent to that of a lowlife, but somewhere along the way, they discover the inherent power in the mastery of language and begin to pursue an education. Douglass figures this out at a younger age than Malcolm X, when his master scolds his mistress after catching her teaching him to read and write, and the exchange enlightens Douglass with the realization that the white man’s superior knowledge is linked to “the white man’s power to enslave the black man” (33). He brings it upon himself to continue his education despite being prohibited, as he deems this the only way to freedom, and furthermore, equality. In comparison, Malcolm X has a different approach to this insight. Nonetheless, he ends up at a similar conclusion: Knowledge will give him the ability to assume control of a situation and to influence others with his words—not only spoken, but written as well. It is a fellow prison inmate, Bimbi, who first inspires Malcolm X. “. . . Bimbi [ ] made me feel envy of his stock of knowledge,” Malcolm X expresses. “Bimbi had always taken charge of any conversations he was in . . .” (1). Through Bimbi, by failing to imitate what the inmate did, Malcolm X finds his motivation to become literate. Furthermore, the educational process that these men undergo is one of their larger differences. In Malcolm X’s case, the prison’s school provides him with everything he needs in order to educate himself, and he conforms to the prison’s correctional intentions by doing so. Fascinated by the expansive collection of words bound together, he copies “what eventually became the entire dictionary” to increase his vocabulary, and when he finishes, he explores the prison library, which is home to an impressive and unique collection of books that “[a]ny college library would have been lucky to get . . .” (2). Consuming an increasing amount of books as his sentence progresses, Malcolm X begins to move on to texts that would provide him with information about black history; he learns of the ancient discoveries of black people, their history, empires, and race-mixing—all before black people and slavery came to North America (3). “. . . [M]onths passed without my even thinking about being imprisoned,” Malcolm X admits, emphasizing the amount of time he spends immersed in books despite serving a seven year detention in a correctional facility (2). Douglass, on the
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Douglass’s initial experience reading a text detailing slavery changes everything for him, and literacy—what he originally thought would lead to his freedom—only leads to further misery, to the point where Douglass wishes that he could return to his once blissful state of ignorance, or better yet, be killed. “ . . . [T]hat very discontentment which . . . would follow my learning to read had already come, to torment and sting my soul to unutterable anguish” (40). Nevertheless, he continues his own education and learns to make use of his newfound
Douglass’s initial experience reading a text detailing slavery changes everything for him, and literacy—what he originally thought would lead to his freedom—only leads to further misery, to the point where Douglass wishes that he could return to his once blissful state of ignorance, or better yet, be killed. “ . . . [T]hat very discontentment which . . . would follow my learning to read had already come, to torment and sting my soul to unutterable anguish” (40). Nevertheless, he continues his own education and learns to make use of his newfound