Billy Graham once stated, “The greatest legacy one can pass on to one's children and grandchildren is not money or other material things accumulated in one's life, but rather a legacy of character and faith.” Frederick Douglass and Booker T. Washington are very good examples of this principle. They both lived to further their race’s plight. These two black pioneers lived through drastically different situations. Douglas, who was an ex-slave, lived when slavery was legal and very prominent. Washington, who was emancipated at the age of 7, lived his life in the age after the abolition of slavery. Frederick Douglass and Booker T. Washington both lived in the 1800’s and both of these men were renowned writers and teachers. Yet, they both were …show more content…
Washington worked to gain an education but by different means. Frederick learned his alphabet from his master’s wife, but once slavery wrapped its vile vines around her consciousness and she was forbidden to teach him, she did whatever she could to prevent Douglas from learning. He then learned the rest of his spelling and penmanship from the sea urchins that lived on the street. He accomplished this feat by a foxy means. The street children would never disclose information on how to read, even though they prized it so little, to a black boy because they knew it was wrong to teach a slave to read. He would challenge one of them to spell a word and of course, they would because they wanted to show their superiority over him. In doing so, he would learn his penmanship and spelling. Unlike Douglas, Washington did not educate himself while he was a slave. After his emancipation, he began his education at age 7 when he convinced his mother to obtain a book for him. He was forced to work in the salt mines by his stepfather which prevented him from attending the school even though he begged his parents to go to school. Enthusiastically, he started his official education when he started a night school, working all day and studying at