There is no need to tell how happy I am by facing such an inspiring subject by comparing and contrasting two of the essays that I have read. Malcolm X “Learning to Read , with Frederick Douglass “Learning to
Read and Write”.

Both Frederick Douglass and Malcolm X set a part an extensive amount of details to describing the process by which they learned to read and write, and, as important, the obstacles that they they confronted. Douglass explains that he had to acquire his reading and writing skills in secretive and, in one of the Important quotes from “Learning to Read and Write” regarding literacy, it said, “he had no regular Teacher” (para .1), and his owner and his mistress consider slavery and education to be incompatible,
Douglass equates illiteracy with living in a” mental darkness” (para.1) and, from an early age he devotes
Himself to learn first how to read and then how to write by the help of the young white boys.
Just as with X, Douglass thrills at the challenges of learning to read and write and, sees this as part of the road to his salvation from “mental darkness” that once enslave him.
Similary, X responds responds to his passion to learn to read and write by creating the conditions that made such learning possible despite some challenging circumstances. While in prison, X teaches himself to read by going through dictionary page by page. In order to remember what he has learned, he copied every single page. He explained in one of the important quotes from “Learning to Read”, “I’d never realized so many words existed! I did not know which words I needed to learn”(para. 6)
Both Malcolm X and Frederick Douglass understood the power of language and education.
X and Douglass also recognize that white people in position of power find their command of language to
Threat and both writers also recognize that becoming educated make them the targets of fury and out rage. Like Professor Stein said on march 1st discussion “Ignorance is blessed”.
Douglass describes his otherwise kind mistress in one of the important quotes from “Learning to Read and Write “rushing at me with with face made all up of fury, and snatching from me a newspaper, in a manner that fully revealed her apprehension” (para. 2) as he caught learning the same books her children do.
Similarly, X was fully aware of his verbal behavior, observing that he was “ the most articulate hustler out there on the streets,” (para. 3). Yet he is humbled by the realization that when he came to writing, he was benefit of the skills necessary to convey his ideas as convincingly as he knew he was capable of.

The situation of both X and Douglass are similar because they are both part of a race that has been looked upon as slaves and slaves did not have the privilege of learning to read and write.
In my opinion, the difference between X and Douglass was that Douglass had to sneak around when he tried to learn when X had books all over. So, it was very hard for Douglass.

After reading both essays of X, Malcolm “Learning to Read” and Douglass, Frederick “Learning to Read and Write”is conceptualized as the means of personal and social liberation.
The two essays demonstrates how important the basic reading and writing skills that so many people for granted become the simple tools that can facilitate profound and lasting personal and social change.
Overall, this is the bond between between the concept of freedom and writing and becoming fully Educated.

X, Malcolm “Learning to Read” 50 Essays.
Edited by Samuel Cohen
3rd Edition. NewYork . Bedford/St Martins 2011
Print 257-266.

Douglass, Frederick
Edited by Samuel Cohen
3rd Edition. NewYork. Bedford/ St Martins 2011
Print 129-134.