Compare Frederick Douglass And Malcolm X

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 …show more content…
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