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Frederick Douglass Learning To Read Summary

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Frederick Douglass Learning To Read Summary
In “Learning to Read” Frederick Douglass recounts his journey of becoming educated as a slave. Douglas describes how his slave owners wife treated him with compassion, as one should treat another human, and began teaching him how to read. Under her husband's instruction she stopped, and treated him the same as any other would treat a slave. She would not allow to even hold a newspaper let alone read it. She soon adapted the mindset that slavery and education were incompatible. “If I was in a separate room any considerable length of time, I was sure to be suspected of having a book, and was at once called to give an account of myself.” (405). Having a watchful eye on him turned him to look for teachers in young white boys in the streets. Trading
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