Lecture Notes in Education Psychology and Public Media
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Lecture Notes in Education Psychology and Public Media
Vol. 45, 19 April 2024
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"The Pathway from Slavery to Freedom": Frederick Douglass and Black Education in Antebellum America
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Abstract
This paper investigates the emergence of education for African Americans in the antebellum South through close examination of the pioneering autobiography Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave. It highlights two starkly contrasting perspectives on black education in the decades before the Civil War - that of white slaveholders, who considered learning dangerous and likely to incite rebellion amongst slaves, versus the viewpoint of Douglass himself, an enslaved man whose hunger for education was a source of hope and a pathway he imagined could lead to freedom. By conducting a close reading of Douglass's personal philosophy on education while he was still enslaved, this paper aims to illuminate the deep hunger for learning and great risks African Americans were willing to take in order to become literate during the antebellum period, demonstrating how highly they valued education in the context of their oppressive status. It seeks to underline the central role of education in early African American freedom narratives and nascent resistance movements through Douglass's pioneering example.
Keywords
Frederick Douglass, antebellum America, black education, slavery, emancipation
References
1. Ethan J. Kytle and Blain Roberts, “Teaching the History of American Slavery,” The Journal of the Civil War Era 7, no. 4 (December 2017): 524–47, https://doi.org/10.1353/cwe.2017.0074.
2. Hilary J. Moss, “Still Separate, Still Unequal: Teaching about School Segregation and Educational Inequality,” The Journal of African American History 101, no. 1/2 (Winter 2016): 26–43, https://doi.org/10.5323/jafriamerhist.101.1-2.0026.
3. Fanuzzi, Robert. “Frederick Douglass, Refugee.” American Literary History 25, no. 2 (2013): 299–328.
4. Coleman, Colette. “How Literacy Became a Powerful Weapon in the Fight to End Slavery.” History, June 17, 2020. https://www.history.com/news/nat-turner-rebellion-literacy-slavery. Accessed June 28, 2023.
5. Douglass, Frederick. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave. Boston: Anti-Slavery Office, 1845.
6. Baker, Houston A. "Designing Douglass: Texts, Personas, and the Reinvention of Frederick Douglass." In New Essays on the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, edited by Eric J. Sundquist, 15-64. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009.
7. Gates Jr., Henry Louis. "Binary Oppositions in Chapter One of Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass." In New Essays on the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, edited by Eric J. Sundquist, 97-108. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009.
8. Andrews, William L. "Education for Freedom." In The Oxford Frederick Douglass Reader, edited by William L. Andrews, 25-52. New York: Oxford University Press, 2018.
Data Availability
The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study will be available from the authors upon reasonable request.
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- Volume Title
- Proceedings of the International Conference on Global Politics and Socio-Humanities
- ISBN (Print)
- 978-1-83558-359-3
- ISBN (Online)
- 978-1-83558-360-9
- Published Date
- 19 April 2024
- Series
- Lecture Notes in Education Psychology and Public Media
- ISSN (Print)
- 2753-7048
- ISSN (Online)
- 2753-7056
- DOI
- 10.54254/2753-7048/45/20230290
- Copyright
- 19 April 2024
- Open Access
- This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited