aka Ken Smith: What Frederick Douglass learned that day about freedom

Saturday April 20, 2024; 7:44 AM EDT

What Frederick Douglass learned that day about freedom#

It's a simple chapter. Douglass, enslaved, was learning to read. Someone had started teaching him.#
Upon finding out about this, his master blew up and forbade it, as many others would have done who owned slaves here in the United States at the time. The master said that learning to read would ruin a slave.#
Douglass now had a rush of insight.#
He learned that grabbing freedom for himself in a society happy to hold him trapped and brutalized required certain tools.#
He learned that the powerful aren't going to leave these tools sitting out. They certainly aren't going to teach others how to use them.#
He learned a big part of the answer to a question he had been pondering for a long time, essentially: #

How is it that they are so easily able to enslave us?#

It's a quick read, that chapter. In his first autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Written by Himself, the brief 1845 edition, it's Chapter VI. Scroll down to page 32.#
But here's the key moment:#

Very soon after I went to live with Mr. and Mrs. Auld, she very kindly commenced to teach me the A, B, C. After I had learned this, she assisted me in learning to spell words of three or four letters. Just at this point of my progress, Mr. Auld found out what was going on, and at once forbade Mrs. Auld to instruct me further, telling her, among other things, that it was unlawful, as well as unsafe, to teach a slave to read. To use his own words, further, he said, "If you give a nigger an inch, he will take an ell. A nigger should know nothing but to obey his master--to do as he is told to do. Learning would spoil the best nigger in the world. Now," said he, "if you teach that nigger (speaking of myself) how to read, there would be no keeping him. It would forever unfit him to be a slave. He would at once become unmanageable, and of no value to his master. As to himself, it could do him no good, but a great deal of harm. It would make him discontented and unhappy."#
These words sank deep into my heart, stirred up sentiments within that lay slumbering, and called into existence an entirely new train of thought. It was a new and special revelation, explaining dark and mysterious things, with which my youthful understanding had struggled, but struggled in vain. I now understood what had been to me a most perplexing difficulty--to wit, the white man's power to enslave the black man. It was a grand achievement, and I prized it highly. From that moment, I understood the pathway from slavery to freedom. It was just what I wanted, and I got it at a time when I the least expected it. Whilst I was saddened by the thought of losing the aid of my kind mistress, I was gladdened by the invaluable instruction which, by the merest accident, I had gained from my master.#
Though conscious of the difficulty of learning without a teacher, I set out with high hope, and a fixed purpose, at whatever cost of trouble, to learn how to read. The very decided manner with which he spoke, and strove to impress his wife with the evil consequences of giving me instruction, served to convince me that he was deeply sensible of the truths he was uttering. It gave me the best assurance that I might rely with the utmost confidence on the results which, he said, would flow from teaching me to read. What he most dreaded, that I most desired. What he most loved, that I most hated. That which to him was a great evil, to be carefully shunned, was to me a great good, to be diligently sought; and the argument which he so warmly urged, against my learning to read, only served to inspire me with a desire and determination to learn. In learning to read, I owe almost as much to the bitter opposition of my master, as to the kindly aid of my mistress. I acknowledge the benefit of both.#

And the following chapter begins:#

I lived in Master Hugh's family about seven years. During this time, I succeeded in learning to read and write. In accomplishing this, I was compelled to resort to various stratagems. I had no regular teacher.#

PS. The story of Mrs. Auld, as brief as it is, also teaches another lesson: How immoral power corrodes the heart and smashes the spiritual compass of even the seemingly most innocent one who wields it. #

Saturday April 20, 2024; 7:44 AM EDT

What Frederick Douglass learned that day about freedom#

It's a simple chapter. Douglass, enslaved, was learning to read. Someone had started teaching him.#
Upon finding out about this, his master blew up and forbade it, as many others would have done who owned slaves here in the United States at the time. The master said that learning to read would ruin a slave.#
Douglass now had a rush of insight.#
He learned that grabbing freedom for himself in a society happy to hold him trapped and brutalized required certain tools.#
He learned that the powerful aren't going to leave these tools sitting out. They certainly aren't going to teach others how to use them.#
He learned a big part of the answer to a question he had been pondering for a long time, essentially: #

How is it that they are so easily able to enslave us?#

It's a quick read, that chapter. In his first autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Written by Himself, the brief 1845 edition, it's Chapter VI. Scroll down to page 32.#
But here's the key moment:#

Very soon after I went to live with Mr. and Mrs. Auld, she very kindly commenced to teach me the A, B, C. After I had learned this, she assisted me in learning to spell words of three or four letters. Just at this point of my progress, Mr. Auld found out what was going on, and at once forbade Mrs. Auld to instruct me further, telling her, among other things, that it was unlawful, as well as unsafe, to teach a slave to read. To use his own words, further, he said, "If you give a nigger an inch, he will take an ell. A nigger should know nothing but to obey his master--to do as he is told to do. Learning would spoil the best nigger in the world. Now," said he, "if you teach that nigger (speaking of myself) how to read, there would be no keeping him. It would forever unfit him to be a slave. He would at once become unmanageable, and of no value to his master. As to himself, it could do him no good, but a great deal of harm. It would make him discontented and unhappy."#
These words sank deep into my heart, stirred up sentiments within that lay slumbering, and called into existence an entirely new train of thought. It was a new and special revelation, explaining dark and mysterious things, with which my youthful understanding had struggled, but struggled in vain. I now understood what had been to me a most perplexing difficulty--to wit, the white man's power to enslave the black man. It was a grand achievement, and I prized it highly. From that moment, I understood the pathway from slavery to freedom. It was just what I wanted, and I got it at a time when I the least expected it. Whilst I was saddened by the thought of losing the aid of my kind mistress, I was gladdened by the invaluable instruction which, by the merest accident, I had gained from my master.#
Though conscious of the difficulty of learning without a teacher, I set out with high hope, and a fixed purpose, at whatever cost of trouble, to learn how to read. The very decided manner with which he spoke, and strove to impress his wife with the evil consequences of giving me instruction, served to convince me that he was deeply sensible of the truths he was uttering. It gave me the best assurance that I might rely with the utmost confidence on the results which, he said, would flow from teaching me to read. What he most dreaded, that I most desired. What he most loved, that I most hated. That which to him was a great evil, to be carefully shunned, was to me a great good, to be diligently sought; and the argument which he so warmly urged, against my learning to read, only served to inspire me with a desire and determination to learn. In learning to read, I owe almost as much to the bitter opposition of my master, as to the kindly aid of my mistress. I acknowledge the benefit of both.#

And the following chapter begins:#

I lived in Master Hugh's family about seven years. During this time, I succeeded in learning to read and write. In accomplishing this, I was compelled to resort to various stratagems. I had no regular teacher.#

PS. The story of Mrs. Auld, as brief as it is, also teaches another lesson: How immoral power corrodes the heart and smashes the spiritual compass of even the seemingly most innocent one who wields it. #

Last update: Saturday April 20, 2024; 9:30 AM EDT.