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Miss Burke
Persuasive Essay
There was a slave. Like many famous and successful people in society over the history of time,
this slave was not held back from the rules and laws that had been established to prevent people in his
position in society from advancing. Moreover, this particular slave, as one of those special people that
only come along every so often in society, was relentlessly determined that he would carve his own path
no matter the consequences, risks and challenges along his life’s journey. The person was a man who
was identified by the name of Frederick Douglas. Frederick Douglas once said, “if there is no struggle,
there is no progress.” Only in retrospect, when reviewing the significance of his actions in his life, is it
abundantly clear that his quote was his personal internal governing mission statement that guided this
man’s life no matter the consequences or obstacles that presented themselves to Frederick Douglas in
his lifetime. It is overwhelmingly evident that Frederick Douglas, like many great people in society, was
only able to achieve great accomplishments because he was one of those rare people willing to embrace
his personal struggles throughout his life, he then learned from those struggles, and then successfully
demonstrated the tremendous accomplishments that can be achieved only by a person willing to risk
their life, and only through such actions did he achieve great progress.
Frederick Douglas as a slave was not permitted to read or write. This was a struggle. The
consequences for willfully violating this Master’s rule could be the penalty of death. A person who was
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a slave could be killed if they violated this cardinal rule. Frederick Douglas personally struggled to
escape the jaws of ignorance and worked hard to find a way to read and write. He was not able to go to
school or have instructors show him and teach him how to read. It was a tremendous struggle for Mr.
Douglas of not knowing how to read and he struggled to teach himself secretly under the constant
threat that if caught teaching himself to read and write he could be killed. The fact of his life of knowing
that he, and other slaves, were not permitted to read or write, only made him have a stronger desire to
achieve this life’s goal so he and other slaves could make progress towards education and freedom in
society. Mr. Douglas once said, “I lived in Master Hugh’s family about seven years. During this time, I
succeeded in learning to read and write. I had no teacher.” Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglas An
American Slave, Chapter VII, Page 51. Mr. Douglas also said, as stated in his autobiography, “Very soon
after I went to live with Mr. and Mrs. Auld, she commenced to teach me A,B,C and learning to spell
words. Mr. Auld forebode Mrs. Auld to instruct me further and it was unlawful to teach a slave to read.”
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglas An American Slave, Chapter VII, page 48. Mr. Douglas
embraced the opportunities to learn and become self-taught for the purpose and opportunity for
progress.
Mr. Frederick Douglas was determined to escape his life of slavery. He tried to escape multiple
times and repeatedly failed in his efforts. His repeated attempts to escape continually resulted in brutal
painful punishment. His continuous attempts to escape slavery each time resulting in extreme torcher
depicts his strong internal drive and desire to overcome challenges. He had goals and continuously
struggled to achieve the goals for progress to escape the life of slavery. Eventually he succeeded. In
effort to escape, Mr. Douglas disguised himself as a sailor wearing a red shirt in his efforts to conceal his
identify as a slave when escaping. He also taught himself to disguise his voice and make himself sound
like a sailor by the way he spoke. The struggle for freedom helped lead to the eventual progress of
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freedom. He learned from the risks the risks he took in life, and his survival enabled him to help other
blacks and slaves. He stated “if there is no struggle, there is no progress.” The freemen and people of
the north did not have the same luxuries of the slave owners. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglas
An American Slave, page 116. Also, after asking Master Hughs for a new type of payment, at first he was
resistant. But, he then gave in and granted the request to Mr. Douglas’ risky and dangerous request.
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglas An American Slave, page 109. The repeated struggles to
escape and achieve freedom ultimately resulted in progress for Mr. Douglas.
The struggles of Mr. Douglas is comparable to the struggles of slaves in the world then and the
world today. The slaves of today, through the efforts of people like Mr. Douglas, have laws to protect
their freedoms; however, they are held against their will. In today’s world, there are approximately
12,000,000 men, women and children in slavery. Amnesty International Slavery Today,
Amnestyinternational.org. Where slaves were and are being brought to America for slave trade,
ultimately they were and are immigrants in a new, brutally harsh living environment. However, as
evidence exclusive of the autobiography book of Frederick Douglas shows, the struggle of immigrants
often depicts the same theory of Douglas being that without the pain of struggle, there can often be no
progress of freedom and individual rights. Some Immigrants see learning English as an ethical
obligation. Most do not have command of English when immigrating to America. This concept supports
the main idea of Mr. Douglas as a person dedicated to struggling to achieve progress. When Mr.
Douglas struggles to escape, and struggles to learn to read and write, he is overcoming the barriers to
individual freedom and the language barrier in the same fashion as most immigrants. These personal
sacrifices were and are painful struggles to achieve progress. Modern Slavery – Human Rights Watch,
www.hrw.org.
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In conclusion, only with the struggles of Mr. Douglas, there could have been no progress for him
or the people in his position in society. His life is an example of his quoted concept, if there is no
struggle, there is no progress. Mr. Douglas made great progress as a slave through his continuous
struggles. Mr. Douglas taught himself to read and write and ultimately escaped slavery. As a person, as
a slave, as a person of African immigrant descent, he struggled to achieve the goals of literacy as well as
personal freedom. Mr. Douglas’ life leaves a lasting impression that if you can imagine for one minute
the struggles he faced on a daily basis, he was a person of tremendous strength in his mind and his
body. Mr. Douglas made great strides as a human, as a slave and he demonstrated that only through
embracing his struggles and persevering for his goals did he achieve his freedom and success of literacy.
Works Cited
Douglas, Frederick. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. Signet Classics, 1997
“About.” Human Rights Watch, 17 Jan. 2017, www.hrw.org/about.