Frederick Douglass Lies

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In the twenty-first century, education has become a secondary priority to most American students, and they are often ungrateful for the opportunities to learn, which are presented everyday. As early as the 19th century until early 20th century, however, blacks would go above and beyond to be able to learn—breaking rules, and doing all they could to get their hands on literary works or any piece of knowledge. Often, verbal attacks led to physical abuse and even death among black civilians. Frederick Douglass was born a slave in a rural Talbot county, Maryland. His exact day of birth is unknown but later he celebrated his birthday on February 14, 1818(Frederick Douglass Biography). After his mother’s death, Douglas was given to Lucretia Ault…show more content…
As Douglass was learning how to write he thought of a plan that would not fail to help him. After learning a few words from the shipyard, Douglass decides to challenge a kid in the street. Douglass states,“ I met with a boy who I knew could write, I would tell him I could write as well as he… I would then make the letters which I had been so fortunate as to learn, and ask him to beat that ”(147). Douglass knew already that he did not know any more words than the 4 that he recently learned. Douglass lied by saying he was a better writer than the kid because he was smart enough to realize that if the kid wrote down the words he could probably learned new word from that. The risks involved there was that if any other white civilian saw Douglass interacting with a white kid, he was prone to death due to the fact that no African American was allowed direct contact with a white civilian in that time. We could also assume the kid is white since no African American kid received an education in Douglass’ time. In the early 1900s, It is highly unlikely that a librarian of the time would ever help someone of color, therefore the forged note was necessary in order for Wright to have access to H.L. Meckan’s books. After Mr. Falck handed his library card to Richard Wright, Wright chooses to forge a note to get the books. After thinking his note through, “[He] finally wrote what [he] thought would be a foolproof note: Dear Madam: will you please let this nigger boy- [he] used the word ‘nigger’ to make the librarian feel that [he] could not possibly be the author of the note- have some books by H.L Mecken? [He] forged the white man’s name”(Wright 348). This is another example of one of the strategies Wright uses
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