Compare And Contrast Malcolm X And Frederick Douglass

Imagine being an African American trying to get an education during segregation times. Getting an adequate education seemed impossible to many African-Americans during this era. Two authors, Frederick Douglass in his essay “Learning to Read and Write” and Malcolm X in his essay “Learning to Read” explore the difficulties they had while trying to teach themselves a literate education. Although Malcolm X and Frederick Douglass learned in different eras and environments, using different strategies, they both had a similar frustrated tone and goal to learn how to read and write.
Douglass and X were both African Americans teaching themselves how to read and write. Douglass was a “slave for life” (146) and to find teachers in his neighborhood he bribed the poor white children. The bribes he used were those of food, or ego. For example, Douglass would carry around extra food on his errands to feed the boys helping him out. Similarly, X gives himself a homemade education. While in prison he gets frustrated with his lack of ability to write adequately, especially when it comes to expressing his thoughts in
Although X and Douglass had the same goal to accomplish, they came about it using different strategies. As briefly mentioned above, X came across his education in a homemade manner. He taught himself to read by reading a dictionary late into the night. Writing was slightly different, but went hand in hand with reading the dictionary; with each page of the dictionary he read, he would copy down every word. Every word. This is where we see the difference with Douglass’ strategy. With X, he was in it all on his own, whereas Douglass enlisted in the help of his own neighbors. Bribes of food and the challenge of being intellectually the best were included in Douglass’ way of achieving his goal. Thus we see the first difference between Douglass’ and X’s