Literacy and Liberation

by Frederick Douglass and Frances E. W. Harper

BEFORE READING

Background

African-American literature found its beginnings during the American slave era, which itself began with the selling of the first African slaves in colonial Jamestown in 1619. The first literary works to emerge out of this dark period were in the form of eighteenth-century slave narratives, poems, and folk materials. The rich black Southern voices that called out through these rare writings were truly distinctive for their profound depth, resonance, sorrow, and anger about the inhumane destruction that slavery had imposed on their lives. Many of these early works sought to record the black man's struggles to escape to freedom and to overthrow slavery. Others reveal beautiful melodic undertones and writing styles that reflected the feelings, perspectives, and spirituality of their African roots.

Two important leaders of the slave era who used writing as a tool for social protest and artistic expression were Frances E. W. Harper and Frederick Douglass. Harper, a free slave from the North, spoke and wrote powerfully for the abolition of slavery and the civil rights of blacks and women. A self-educated former slave, Frederick Douglass devoted his life to enlightening, educating, and raising the consciousness of Northern whites about the unspeakable horrors of slavery. The strength of Douglass's character and writings would come to play an important role in widening the NorthÐSouth gap that eventually ended slavery in America.

In this selection, Harper and Douglass reveal what an important role literacy played in freeing blacks—both physically and spiritually—from the oppressiveness of slavery.

Frederick Douglass (1817-1895), a famous African-American ex-slave and abolitionist, author, orator, and journalist, was born the son of a female Negro slave and of a white father that he would never meet.

Reared until the age of eight by his enslaved grandmother, Douglass was sent to Baltimore in 1825 to live with the Auld family, who were relatives of his master. During his stay there, Mrs. Auld taught him how to read and write. Upon the death of his master in 1833, Douglass was sold off a number of other masters before unsuccessfully attempting to escape to freedom in 1836. Sent back to his master, Douglass worked as a ship caulker until 1838, when he escaped to New York City disguised as a sailor.

As a free man, Douglass took a free colored woman as his wife and moved to Massachusetts, where he worked as a laborer for a living. He became involved in the anti-slavery movement in 1841, after he displayed his great oratorical power during a spontaneous speech at the Anti-Slavery Society of Massachusetts. For four years, he was one of the Society's lecturers, speaking at various places, including Harvard University. After publishing his autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (1845), Douglass moved to England for two years out of fear of recapture. Upon his return to the States in 1847, he purchased his own freedom and began the anti-slavery paper North Star in New York.

With the onset of the Civil War, Douglass was asked by the government to help recruit men for a new Union Army Negro regiment, which ultimately came to include two of Douglass's own sons. Over the next twenty years, from 1871 to 1891, Douglass was appointed to a number of significant governmental posts, making him the first African-American leader of national standing in the United States. The most significant of his posts, his last, was as the American Consul General to Haiti.

Frederick Douglass was best known for his powerful oratory, which brought to life the tremendous oppression he and millions of others endured under slavery. Douglass's autobiographical writings include My Bondage and My Freedom (1855) and Life and Times of Frederick Douglass (1881).

Frances E. W. Harper (1825-1911), African-American poet, novelist, social reformer, and lecturer, was born a free individual in the slave state of Maryland and ultimately came to play a very active and powerful role in the abolitionist movement against slavery.

Though orphaned early in life, Harper attended a highly academic Negro school in Baltimore, where she excelled in studies of languages, elocution, and the Bible. Her outstanding education enabled her to teach in Negro schools in Ohio and Pennsylvania from 1850 to 1853 and give her the courage to answer her strong literary calling by writing such early works as Forest Leaves (1845) and Eventide (1854). It wasn't long, however, before the ever-turbulent issue of slavery compelled the strong-willed Harper to get involved in the abolitionist movement, first as a worker on the Underground Railroad, then as one of the first woman lecturers for the Maine Anti-Slavery Society.

While spreading the word of abolitionism and social reform throughout the North, Harper became known as a fiery and dramatic orator who captivated her audiences with highly melodic and verse-like speeches. The strong imagery and morality of her affecting presentations—which often included readings from her most popular book, Poems on Miscellaneous Subjects (1854)—garnered national attention for Harper and the cause of freedom. And while lecturing for anti-slavery groups, Harper regularly contributed to abolitionist journals such as The Liberator and Frederick Douglass's Monthly. She also participated in streetcar protests in Philadelphia in 1858 and in John Brown's stand at Harper's Ferry in 1859.

By 1860, Harper had married a farmer, had given birth to a child, and had become a homemaker. As the Civil War commenced, she continued to give lectures against the South and was one of the first blacks to go there after the war to assist in the freedom of former slaves. After the untimely death of her husband, Harper began a crusade of lectures throughout the South, trying to educate blacks and whites about the goals of the post-slavery Reconstruction era. The essays that Harper sent to Northern newspapers during her Southern pilgrimage proved to be very influential, as were her poetic works, Moses: A Story of the Nile (1869), Sketches of Southern Life (1870), and Poems (1871).

The same high morality and tireless campaigning that Harper used during the abolitionist and Reconstruction eras, she would later apply to the women's temperance cause against alcohol. Her powerful perspective and efforts in this area would make Harper one of the first African-American women to gain a national office in the Women's Christian Temperance Movement.

Harper's literary works used lyrical innovation and moral conviction to draw attention to the social struggles that burdened America during the slave era. Though she used literature as a way to capture beauty and to ease her mind, she also viewed it as a tool that could change or improve the lives and views of her audience. Among her other important works are Iola Leroy: or, Shadows Uplifted (1892), Atlanta Offering: Poems (1895), and Idylls of the Bible (1901).

1. commenced— begun.

2. an ell—more than a yard

3. stratagems— schemes.

4. depravity—wickedness.

5. chattel—movable piece of personal property.

6. divest—rid.

7. precepts—rules.

8. apprehension—uneasiness.

9. urchins—orphans; mischievous children.

10. prudence—good judgment.

11. emancipation—release; freedom from slavery.

12. unabated—unending, undying.

13. denunciation—condemnation, criticism.

14. vindication—justification.

15. abhor—hate.

16. animate—living.

17. inanimate—lifeless.

18. scow—flat-bottomed boat.

19. leaves—book pages.

20. Testament—the Christian Bible.

DURING READING

Use the STUDY GUIDE below as a way to work through the selection and improve your comprehension of the essay.

AFTER READING

Answer the Questions to Consider questions in the book as a way to deepen your interpretation of the selection.

1.What do the lines "Oh! Chloe, you're too late; But as I was rising sixty, I had no time to wait" mean?

2. When and how did Frederick Douglass come to understand that learning to read and write was important?

3. On page 17, Douglass writes of trying to discover what "the fruit of abolition" meant. How would you define the phrase?

4. Why was literacy so important to both Frances E. W. Harper and Frederick Douglass?

Bibliography

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (1845)

My Bondage and My Freedom (1855)

Life and Times of Frederick Douglass (1881)

Forest Leaves (1845)

Poems on Miscellaneous Subjects (1854)

Eventide (1854)

Moses: A Story of the Nile (1869)

Sketches of Southern Life (1870)

Poems (1871)

Trial and Triumph (1888)

Iola Leroy: or, Shadows Uplifted (1892)

Atlanta Offering: Poems (1895)

Idylls of the Bible (1901)

James Baldwin. Notes of a Native Son (1955). A powerful African-American prose writer explains to 1950s white America what it means to be an urban black.

Claude Brown. Manchild in the Promised Land (1965). Autobiography of a young man who escaped the Harlem ghetto, gang wars, and prison to enter law school.

Frederick Douglass. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (1845). The life story of the self-educated ex-slave who became a famous lecturer of the abolitionist movement.

W.E.B. DuBois. The Souls of Black Folk (1903). An African-American historian, sociologist, educator, and abolitionist explores the souls of blacks in nineteenth-century America.

Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. Why We Can't Wait (1964). One of five books in which the great Civil Rights leader explains his approach to achieving racial justice in America.

Malcolm X as told to Alex Haley. The Autobiography of Malcolm X (1965). The life story of an influential Black Muslim leader of the mid- to late-1960s.

Alice Moody. Coming of Age in Mississippi (1969). A candid memoir of a young Mississippi woman's experience in the Civil Rights movement.

Toni Morrison. Jazz (1992). A lyrical, improvisational story of black life in 1920s New York City by the first African-American woman to win a Nobel Prize.

Alice Walker. The Color Purple (1982). A best-selling, Pulitzer prize-winning novel by a prolific fiction writer and women's advocate, the daughter of Georgia sharecroppers.

Richard Wright. Native Son (1940). A searing novel of the World War II era, by an African-American author who influenced many later writers.