learning to read and write

“Learning To Read and Write” “Whenever you feel like criticizing anyone, just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages you have.” A favorite quote from the book, The Great Gatsby, fits this essay perfectly. Frederick Douglass’s Learning To Read and Write is part of an intriguing autobiography. A slave learning to read and write was a great accomplishment back then. Additionally, a slave running away was a horrible crime to commit. Douglass points out that slaves were not meant to read or write. He makes a plan to learn how to read from the little white boys on the streets. Freedom, he wanted freedom like any slave would. He found a way to write, he found a way to get his story out to millions, by learning how to write. Learning to read as a child was difficult for us, just imagine being a slave. Douglass was a young boy when he was learning from his mistress to read. “She was a sweet tender-hearted woman” (146). His Mistress was opposed to keeping him locked up into “mental darkness” (146) One day his lessons just stopped. Her husband had urged her to take a step towards his advice and become cold hearted. In result Douglass had to find a new way to learn how to read. She first became very angry when she saw him with a book. She would “rush at me with a face made up of fury” (146). She had become more violent than her husband because she wanted to be better. Master Hughes became overwhelmed with the extremity she took it to. It was too late because she had given him the alphabet and the sound the letters made. “No precaution could prevent him from talking the ell” (146). Douglass’s plan was to make friends with the young white boys in his neighborhood he converted into teachers. He would take the bread that was available to him and pay the poor white boys for teaching him to read. Douglass would run his errands and stop for a quick lesson before returning home. He states “I am strongly tempted to give the names of some of