Auld-and the reading audience of his memoir-and to emphasize the theme that literacy (or education) is one way to combat racism. Auld and Douglass, Douglass gives an account of Auld’s exact language in order to hold a mirror to the racism of Mr. Thus, Professor Kennedy cautions that all people should understand the history of the word, be aware of its potential negative effect on an audience, and therefore use it sparingly, or preferably not at all. However, even when intention is very clear and malice is not intended, harm can, and likely will, occur. Despite this evolution, Professor Kennedy explains that the use of the word should be accompanied by a deep understanding of one’s audience and by being clear about the intention.

In response, over time, Black people have reclaimed the word (or variations of it) for different purposes, including mirroring racism, creating irony, and reclaiming community and personal power-using the word for a contrasting purpose to the way others use it. However, by the mid-1800s, White people had appropriated the term and begun using it with its current negative connotation. 1954), who has traced the historical evolution of the word, notes that one of its first uses, recorded in 1619, appears to have been descriptive rather than derogatory. In an interview with the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), Harvard professor Randall Kennedy (b. Douglass describes this moment with detail and accuracy, including Mr. Auld, an enslaver who by the laws of the time owns Douglass. In the portion of the text included here, Douglass chooses to represent the dialogue of Mr. Douglass went on to work as an activist in the abolitionist movement as well as the women’s suffrage movement.

Within 24 hours, he arrived in New York City and declared himself free. Dressed as a sailor, Douglass bought a train ticket northward. Murray helped Douglass plot his escape from slavery. When Douglass was 20, he met Anna Murray, whom he would later marry. At age 15, he began educating other enslaved people. By age 12, he was reading texts about the natural rights of human beings. In the excerpt from his autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, that follows, you will learn about how Douglass learned to read. As a boy, Douglass understood there to be a connection between literacy and freedom. He never knew his father, barely knew his mother, and was separated from his grandmother at a young age. Figure 3.9 Frederick Douglass: speaker, writer, abolitionist (credit: “Frederick Douglass, from an 1856 Ambrotype in the National Portrait Gallery” by Mike Licht, /flickr, CC BY 2.0)įrederick Douglass (1818–1895) was born into slavery in Maryland.

Narrative of the life of frederick