Huckleberry Finn
Cassie Pearson
Honors American Lit.
1/6/13
Race and Racial Injustice Throughout history America has always battled issues with race. Whether it was slaves fighting for freedom, African Americans struggling for equality or today’s issue of illegal immigrants, race in America is a constant evolving subject. With the struggles of these people have come many inspiring works of literature, each voicing the same message of freedom and equality. In the famous speeches of Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington and Martin Luther King Jr. and the writings of former slaves each share similarities and differences between the ways in which they are written, presented, their message, and how their audience responded to their words. Each speech and writing shook the people who heard it and helped change and make history. These powerful works of literature are a true inspiration, without them our world would not be the same. Frederick Douglass, one of the greatest abolitionist leaders of the nineteenth century, was born into slavery in the year 1818 on a plantation in Maryland. Frederick Douglass lived the first twenty years of his life as a slave; throughout this time he witnessed and felt the harsh life of a slave. Slaves were often restricted; they were allowed to do very little, especially with white people. One activity they were allowed to partake in during slavery was worship. Frederick Douglass did not hate Christianity, what he hated was the prejudice within the Christian churches of America. He spoke about this discrimination, in his speech The Church and Prejudice. Douglass delivered the speech on November 4th 1841 in Plymouth County Massachusetts. Throughout the Speech Frederick Douglass spoke on both the discrimination against the free blacks in the north and the cruelty against the slaves in the south, for example he states in his speech, “Yet people in general will say they like colored men as well as any other, but in their proper place!
Honors American Lit.
1/6/13
Race and Racial Injustice Throughout history America has always battled issues with race. Whether it was slaves fighting for freedom, African Americans struggling for equality or today’s issue of illegal immigrants, race in America is a constant evolving subject. With the struggles of these people have come many inspiring works of literature, each voicing the same message of freedom and equality. In the famous speeches of Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington and Martin Luther King Jr. and the writings of former slaves each share similarities and differences between the ways in which they are written, presented, their message, and how their audience responded to their words. Each speech and writing shook the people who heard it and helped change and make history. These powerful works of literature are a true inspiration, without them our world would not be the same. Frederick Douglass, one of the greatest abolitionist leaders of the nineteenth century, was born into slavery in the year 1818 on a plantation in Maryland. Frederick Douglass lived the first twenty years of his life as a slave; throughout this time he witnessed and felt the harsh life of a slave. Slaves were often restricted; they were allowed to do very little, especially with white people. One activity they were allowed to partake in during slavery was worship. Frederick Douglass did not hate Christianity, what he hated was the prejudice within the Christian churches of America. He spoke about this discrimination, in his speech The Church and Prejudice. Douglass delivered the speech on November 4th 1841 in Plymouth County Massachusetts. Throughout the Speech Frederick Douglass spoke on both the discrimination against the free blacks in the north and the cruelty against the slaves in the south, for example he states in his speech, “Yet people in general will say they like colored men as well as any other, but in their proper place!