Frederick Douglass: A True Hero

Winston Churchill said,“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.” Courage is essential to heroism. Courage means the ability to do something that scares others. It means being calm in the face of danger. Even though it might not guarantee a happy ending, heroism is about being courageous; being the person who steps up to achieve a goal and who is not self centered. Heroes are courageous no matter how risky or hard the challenge. In Frederick Douglass’ autobiography, Douglass states, “...the idea of speaking to white people weighed me down. I spoke but a few moments, when I felt a degree of freedom, and said what I desired with considerable ease.” This means that at first Douglass was afraid of speaking his opinion in front of the white people because of his race, but then he was courageous enough to speak his opinion and “felt a degree of freedom”. Another example would would be Mulan, who took her father’s place in a war even though it was illegal to do so.
Heroes are people who step up when nobody wants to try.
Abraham Lincoln is an example of this. In his sermon, it states that, “...the cause he so ardently loved, so ably, patiently, faithfully represented and defended―not for himself only, not for us only, but for all people in all their coming generations...” This basically means that Lincoln was courageous and determined to help end the Civil War. Another example would be the Man with the Red Bandana. During 9/11, he helped many people out of one of the towers, dying in the process. Malala Yousafzai stood up for women’s education in Pakistan and stood up against the
Taliban. Heroes are not self-centered. Instead, they are selfless and considerate. Similarly, in the article Where I Find My Heroes, it tells of many “heroic” people such as, “Scientists who spend years of their lives trying to find cures for diseases,” and, “The teenager who says no to crack.”
These people aren’t actually very heroic because the scientist are working on the cures for money and it is common sense for the teenager to say no to drugs. An example of heroic people are the people who participated in the Boatlift during 9/11. They were ordinary people who, in the face of such a disaster, went out on their boats and started an evacuation of Manhattan. Some people would say that people who don’t do bad things are heroes. Some people would also say that people who innovate and invent just for money are heroes. But, real heroes are the people who put themselves in the face of danger and no matter if they fail or succeed, they will have been heroes anyways.