Frederick Douglass: All God's Chillen Had Wings

All God’s Chillen Had Wings
This folktale by Caesar Grant was inspired by “The People Could Fly.” This tale tells a story about black flight and how Africans regained their power and freedom with the help of an older African man. No matter how confined one was, there was always a desire for freedom. The author, Grant, begins by clarifying that before slavery, everyone, including Africans were once free and could fly. He did this to let the readers know that in the beginning there were no hierarchies and we were all equal. The tale shows how Africans transformed from ordinary human beings, to being completely powerless. According to the narrator, they lost their wings because of something “they had forgotten.” After the older man spoke to them …show more content…
Douglass began by telling the readers the basic information about himself, however, unlike other autobiographies, Douglass spoke about the things he did not know and is curious about. Like many slave children, he did not know his birthday, but what made him different was that he also did not know his father, who was rumored to be white. The idea of fictive kinship comes about when he spoke about his relationship with his mother which was almost nonexistent. The only mother like figure he had was with the older lady who took care of the other babies who were born a slave. Not knowing his age and parents took away from his personal identity. His story is about his manhood and how he transformed by creating his personal identity and gained his masculinity. The notion of what it means to be a man shapes this …show more content…
She used this pseudonym as a safe guard to protect herself and to also keep certain escape routes private for other enslaved individuals. This narrative is somewhat different than that of Frederick Douglass. This is because Linda had a sense of family. She knew her mother and her grandmother, and was also taught to read and write. The most common similarity which shaped their narratives is that they were both mulattoes. This narrative took place in a town setting, where Linda’s grandmother was free and served as a protection. Throughout Jacobs’ life, she had never seen anyone close to her experience brutality. This also makes her different from Douglass, since he had witnessed his grandmother being beaten by their master. Her life took a turn when her master died and she was inherited by a