Fredrick douglas

4.9 of 5.0 (124 reviews)

Contains
561 words

Category
People

The above thumbnails are of reduced quality. To view the work in full quality, click download.

Fredrick douglas

: Frederick Douglass was an emancipated slave who passed from one master to another until he finally found the satisfaction of being his own. He went through almost as many names as masters. His mother's family name, traceable at least as far back as 1701 was Bailey, the name he bore until his flight to freedom in 1838. His father may have been a white man named Anthony, but Douglass never firmly validated or rejected this possibility. During transit to New York, where he became a free his name became Stanley, and upon arrival he changed it again to Johnson. In New Bedford, where there were too many Johnson's, he found it necessary to change it once more and his final choice was Douglass. Throughout this period, he clung to his name Frederick to, 'preserve a sense of [his] identity' (Norton, 1988). This succession of names is illustrative of the transformation undergone by one returning from the world of the dead, which in a sense is what the move from oppression to liberty is. Frederick Douglass not only underwent a transformation but, being intelligent and endowed with the gift of Voice, he brought back with him a sharp perspective on the blights of racism and slavery. Dropped into America during the heat of the reformation period, as he was, his appearance on the scene of debate, and his own self-emancipation, was a valuable blessing for the abolitionists. In their struggles so far, there had been many skilled arguers but few who could so convincingly portray the evils of slavery, an act that seemed to demand little firsthand experience, but which also required a clear understanding of it. Douglass had both, and proved himself an incredibly powerful weapon for reform. The life of a slave was full of hard times along with sadness. Slaves were bought and sold at random. There slaveholders consistently whipped them were they had calluses all over there backs. When they transported the slaves they were ranked together with the horses, sheep and swine. The Slaves were breed for size and strength. While the identity of his father is uncertain, it is generally accepted that the man was white, giving Douglass a mixed ancestry. Mirroring this, he was also blessed with an eye that could bring into focus different perspectives, just as many multi-racial children today are able to speak multiple languages, with ease. He had the ability to translate in a well-spoken manner between the worlds of the black man and white man. The story of the American Dream, where a young man, born into a hostile world, never loses sight of one goal, is not all that distant in theme from Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. The story of the American Dream has been embedded deeply in our culture from the beginning. Similarly anchored in the American consciousness is the presence of a slavery-complex. Along these lines Douglass' role is a major one, for relatively few first-hand accounts of slavery as powerful and representative as his exist, in light of the magnitude of the crime, and few voices have been as far-reaching. More recent heirs of this office such as Malcolm X have carried the torch further, just as America's racial sickness still clings to our collective consciousness. Frederick Douglass has been described as bicultural. In other words, he occupied a middle ground ...

You are currently seeing 50% of this paper.

You're seeing 561 words of 1121.

Read the full essay

Keywords: frederick douglass, frederick douglass high school, frederick douglass quotes, frederick douglass book, frederick douglass history, frederick douglass notes, frederick douglass accomplishments, frederick douglass birthday

Similar essays

Paul L

. Dunbar aurence Dunbar aurence Dunbar was born June 27, 1872 in Dayton, OH. His mother Matilda, was a former slave and his father Joshua had escaped slavery and served in the 55th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment and the 5th Massachusetts Colored Calvary Regiment during the Civil war (online). Joshua and Matilda separated in 1874. Dunbar...

126 reviews

Download

Lee De Forest

was born Aug. 26, 1873, Council Bluffs, Iowa. De Forest was the son of a Congregational minister. His father moved the family to Alabama and there assumed the presidency of the nearly bankrupt Talladega College for Negroes. Excluded by citizens of the white community who resented his father\'s efforts to educate blacks, Lee and his br...

43 reviews

Download

Rudyard Kipling

, born in Bombay, India, on December 30, 1865, made a significant contribution to English Literature in various genres including poetry, short story and novel. His birth took place in an affluent family with his father holding the post of Professor of Architectural Sculpture at the Bombay School of Art and his mother coming from a family o...

134 reviews

Download

Peter the Great

Your amazing deeds are your trophies. Entire Russia is your statue, reshaped by your expert skill, as pictured not in vain in your emblem; and the entire world is your poet, and the preacher of your glory. 1 Archbishop, Feofan Prokopovich is describing the past Tzar of Russia, and his influence on Russian society and the world. Peter...

177 reviews

Download

Poe

Edgar Allan Literary critism is extremely essential in the understanding of literature works. Critism on Edgar Allan varies with poems, short stories, and other literary works. Harold Bloom has published two books maybe even more on the critism and interpretation of Edgar Allan 's works. In both of these books there are other authors and c...

174 reviews

Download