Knowledge is Freedom

As an autobiographic attempt to account for his life experiences leading up to his successful career as an American writer, orator, and social activist, Frederick Douglass’s Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass sheds a unique light on the subject of slavery in America. Written in first-person, the text is intended to be understood as a direct reaction to the effects of slavery (a variety of which, both plantation slavery and slavery in the North, are experienced by Douglass himself). What I found particularly interesting from the reading was Douglass’s revelation of the correlation between ignorance and slavery/knowledge and freedom. In Chapter VI, Douglass discusses the process in which he came upon such an epiphany: “From that moment, I understood the pathway from slavery to freedom. It was just what I wanted, and I got it at a time when I the least expected it” (p. 29). Being of a relatively more educated (and therefore, “freer”) disposition, I rarely consider the concrete power of “knowledge” as a vehicle from which freedom may be exercised. In keeping slaves ignorant of the ability to read and/or write, they are not only physically enslaved but, additionally, kept in a state of mental enslavement. As with their physical needs (food, shelter, etc.), slaves become completely dependent on their masters for mental development as well. Without the capacity to read or write, slaves become reliant solely on the biased information fed by their owners.