Frederick douglass

“Achieving Literacy as Success”
“Learning to Read and Write” by Frederick Douglass, and “One Voice” by Susan Madera are two real life stories about two totally different people. Some characteristics that distinguish them are their ethnicity, gender, culture, time periods, and education. It´s incredible everything Douglass had to go through in order to learn how to read and write, while Maderathat did have the education still had trouble with her language. A very notable difference between them is that Douglass was black and was a slave who was tied to his masters, in the contrary, Susan was a free woman but she felt tied to her neighborhood language. Although they were completely distinct, they both had something particular in common, the desire to succeed through literacy.
Duringthe 1800’s, slavery was still present in some states of America, and African Americans were not considered equals. In Frederick Douglass’ essay “Learning to Read and Write,” Douglass describes himself as someone who was able to overcome all the restrictions and limitations that slavery caused. Douglass was a slave for life, someone that didn’t have the opportunity to go to school and get educated,because he wasn’t allowed to do so. At the beginning his mistress was kind with him, she started tutoring him and teaching him the alphabet. Douglass says that “in the simplicity of her soul she commenced, when I first went to live with her, to treat me as she supposed one human being ought to treat other.” (Douglass 734) Suddenly, her attitude changed dramatically because her husband believed thatslaves didn’t deserve the privilege of literacy, because otherwise, they wouldn’t obey their masters. His mistress paid close attention to Douglass, because she didn’t want anyone to educate him.
Frederick Douglass saw that the only way to be free was through literacy, so his goal was to learn how to read and write no matter his condition. “The plan which I adopted, and the one by which I wasmost successful, was that of making friends of all the little white boys whom I met in the street. As many of these as I could, I converted into teachers.” (Douglass 735) Douglass traded bread for knowledge. Even though he was a slave, he always had something to eat, so he gave bread to the poor white kids in the streets and in return, they shared some of their knowledge. At the age of twelve, thefact that he was a slave for life started to hurt him. At that time, he was reading a book called “The Columbian Orator” that was about emancipation, and he started to dislike reading. He realized that becoming literate made him aware of all the unfair circumstances of slavery. Douglass states, “The reading of these documents enabled me to utter my thoughts, and to meet the arguments broughtforward to sustain slavery;… the more I read, the more I was led to abhor and detest my enslavers.” (Douglass 736) He now agreed with his masters that slaves should not be literate. However, Douglass had already taken the first step of his learning. Frederick Douglass was able to overcome obstacles and social conflicts that slavery imposed on him in his quest for literacy.
On the other hand, in SusanMadera´s essay “One Voice,” Madera explains how the language of her childhood, her "neighborhood" language, was different from standard English and how this placed her outside of society. Madera shares her experience of how being the laughing stock of her teachers and classmates taught her that the power of words can shape lives. She had the opportunity to go to school thanks to her father thatworked two strenuous jobs. She got the education and she knew how to read and write, but her problem was that she spoke two languages; the one taught in school and the second one was taught in the streets. She went to a small grammar school where she studied English. Madera says, “to me, it was a foreign language-mysterious, and intriguing, but not a language I spoke fluently… Many of the...