Has any event in your life had the same impact that learning how to read had on Douglass’s life? If not, why not? Douglass’s full name was Frederick Douglass. He was also a slave. According Wikipedia “Douglass’s full name was Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey, but he dropped two of his names after he escaped slavery. According to Wikipedia, he was ‘an American social reformer, abolitionist, orator, writer, and statesman.’” After escaping from slavery in Maryland, he became a national leader of the abolitionist movement in Massachusetts and New York, becoming famous for his oratory and incisive antislavery writings.” (I recently read part of his autobiography. I will finish it much later.)

When Douglass had a master that was very kind, she taught him to read and to write. Teaching slaves how to read and write in the south was illegal. This was illegal because the slave owners thought that if the slaves learned to read and write they would no longer be content with being a slave, which I think means that they would rebel and take over the south. So reading and writing was Douglass’s very first step to freedom. And because of knowing how to read and write he wrote his autobiography when he got out of slavery. It is amazing how learning how to read and write made such an impact on Douglass’s life as a slave. That is so amazing I can not even compare something in my life that was as amazing as that, but I think I can compare something very close. It was when I was baptized.

Has any event in your life had the same impact that learning how to read had on Douglass’s life? If not, why not? My baptism was the most influential part of my life. It showed everybody that I have accepted Jesus Crist the son of the living God as my Savior. It was very influential. Everyone at my church was there. It was about one or two years after I really did accept Jesus to be my Savior. I was about five years old then. Here’s something weird that I never fully understand. Before I accepted Jesus to be my Savior, I was having dreams and nightmares almost every night. And after I accepted Jesus to be my Savior, I rarely had dreams at all. Now, it is very rare for me to have dreams and nightmares. It was very weird. I never did fully understand it, but I am so thankful that it happened. I also seemed to understand the Bible even more. That should be very similar to the impact learning to read and write had on Douglass’s life. Very similar.

I am thirteen years old and I do not think that learning to read and write impacted me as much as it did for Douglass. I mean, Douglass was a slave and he learned how to read and write, I mean, come one! A slave learning how to read and write when it was illegal to do so. That must have been a very influential time for him, and it must have impacted him a whole lot. It is just so amazing that Douglass was a slave he learned how to read and write even when it was illegal to. Don’t you think so too?