Chapter 24 Chapter 21 The Road to Freedom

Frederick Bailey was a slave. When he was a boy in Maryland in 1820, he did not enjoy the care of his father and mother. (“It was a common thing,” he later wrote, “that children were separated from their mothers before they were 12 months old . . . .”) He was one of those countless slave children member.For them, the prospect of an ideal life in the future is almost zero. Some of the things Pele experienced and experienced growing up have left an eternal mark on him.He said: "I used to be woken at dawn by the heartrending screams of one of my aunts who used to be tied to a floor joist and whipped on her naked back until she was almost Covered in blood...from sunrise to sunset. She was always cursing, cursing, whipping, slashing and killing among the slaves... It seemed that she could get endless pleasure from showing her ferocity and violence. "

From plantations to pulpits, from courtrooms to council halls, slaves were taught the idea that they were born low and that it was God's will that they suffer. Numerous passages in the Bible affirm tolerant slavery.In spite of slavery's horrific nature, which even its enforcers must have noticed, the "special institution" survived in its own way. One of the rules that most reveals the essence of slavery is this: slaves were always forced to remain illiterate.In the slave-era South, a white man who taught a slave to read would be severely punished.To "make slaves pleasing," Bailey later wrote, "it was necessary to make them mindless. It was also necessary to make their moral and spiritual Their ability to think rationally." This is why slave masters must prevent slaves from hearing, seeing, and thinking.That's why reading and critical thinking are dangerous in an unjust society and can even lead to the collapse of the society.

Now look at Frederick Bailey in 1828.He was then a ten-year-old African-American child, a slave without any legal rights, surviving on his own for a long time since he was taken from his mother's arms.Like a calf or a colt, he was sold from his dilapidated slum home to an unknown family in Baltimore, a strange city, and began his never-ending life of misery. Bailey was assigned to work for Colonel Hugh Alter and his wife Sophia. He traveled between farms and towns, not only doing farm work but also housework.In this new environment, he had daily access to letters, books, and people who could read.He discovered what he called the "secret" of reading: There was a relationship between the letters on those pages and the movement of the reader's lips, the strokes of those black letters and the sounds they made. There seemed to be a one-to-one correspondence.So... he secretly studied Tom Alter Jr.'s "Webster's Spelling Book" without others noticing.He memorized the letters of the alphabet and tried to understand what they sounded like.Finally, he asked Sofia Alter to teach him to study.Sophia was moved by the child's intelligence and hard work, maybe she didn't know there was any taboo in doing so, so she agreed to teach him.

Just when Frederick began to spell words of three or four letters, Colonel Alter discovered this, and in a rage he ordered Sophia to cease this education.In Frederick's presence he explained: "A black person should know nothing but be faithful to his master and do what he bids. Learning will make the best black person in the world bad. Now, if you teach this nigger Read, then he can't be allowed to stay anymore, and studying is something niggers should never do." That's how Alter scolded Sophia, as if Frederick wasn't there or a log. However, Alter revealed a big secret to Bailey: "I now understand... what is the power of white people to enslave black people. From that moment, I understand what is the road from slavery to freedom."

Sophia became reticent and threatened, and Frederick could no longer get help from her and had to find other ways to study, including consulting white students who walked the street after school.He then taught what he had learned to his fellow slaves, saying, "Their minds are so hungry...their spirits are imprisoned in darkness. I teach them because it is my spiritual hapiness." The knowledge he gained was instrumental in Bailey's escape to New England, a country where slavery was illegal and blacks were free.He changed his name to Frederick Douglass (after a character in Walter Scott's "Lady of the Lake") to escape a bounty hunt for fugitive slaves.Later he became an outstanding orator, writer and political leader in American history.Throughout his life, he believed that education was the way to freedom.

For ninety-nine percent of the time humans have lived on Earth, no one has been able to read and write.There were no great inventions then.Almost everything we know, other than first-hand experience, is passed down through oral language, like the children's game "Telephony."After passing through dozens and hundreds of generations, the information gradually deviates from the original meaning and is lost. Books changed all that.Inexpensive books enable us to buy, allow us to know the past accurately, draw on our human wisdom, understand other people's views, not just those of rulers; think deeply about human beings with the best teachers Deep thoughts painstakingly wrought from nature.Think deeply about the great ideas that have emerged globally and throughout human history.Books allow those who have long been buried in the ground to talk to us in our heads.No matter where we are, books can accompany us.When we are slow to understand, books wait patiently for us.Books allow us to reread those difficult parts as often as we like, never criticizing our negligence.Books are our key to understanding the world and participating in a democratic society.

By some measures, African-Americans have grown significantly in terms of literacy since emancipation. In 1860, an estimated 5 percent of African-Americans could read and write. In 1890, according to U.S. statistics, 39 percent of African-Americans were literate. In 1969, this figure had reached 96%.Between 1940 and 1992, the percentage of African-Americans who completed high school rose from 7 percent to 82 percent.Of course there is a need for testing methods to examine the quality of education and literacy levels.The criteria for examination should be set on a case-by-case basis for each ethnic group.

A national survey by the U.S. Department of Education shows that there are 40 million adults in the country who are only literate in reading and writing.Other surveys were even worse.Young people's literacy levels have declined alarmingly over the past decade, with only 3% to 4% achieving top scores in the Level 5 reading proficiency test (and everyone in this group went to university).Most people don't know that they are poor readers.Only 4 percent of those with the highest scores live in poverty, and 43 percent of these people are at the lowest level of reading ability.Of course, there is not only one factor that leads to their low reading level, but in general, the amount of reading is directly proportional to income. The average annual income of those with the lowest reading level is 12,000 US dollars, while the average annual income of those with the highest reading level up to $34,000.If reading proficiency is not necessarily a requirement for a good income, it seems to be very necessary.If you are illiterate or barely literate, you are more likely to go to jail. (In evaluating these facts, we must be careful not to inappropriately infer cause from correlates.)

Also, the illiterate and poorer people don't understand that voting agencies can be helpful to themselves and their children, and a surprisingly large proportion don't vote at all.This state of affairs fundamentally undermines democracy. If Frederick Douglass, a slave, was able to teach himself and accomplish great things, why can't people in our more progressive age be able to read?Of course, it's not that simple, partly because few of us are as bright and courageous as Frederick Douglass anymore, but there are other important reasons too: If you were born into a scholarly family, there are many books to read at home, and your parents, siblings, uncles, aunts and cousins ​​all enjoy reading, then you should naturally learn to read.How do you think it's worth the effort if you have no one around you who reads for pleasure?If the quality of the education you can get is not high, if the teacher only makes you memorize, but does not teach you how to think, if you are exposed to something almost like a book when you first start reading, then learning to read will become a problem. A thorny path that is difficult to climb.

You have to internalize knowledge so they become your own.You have dozens of uppercase and lowercase letters, signs, and punctuation marks to remember, and you also have to memorize thousands of fixed spellings one by one.There are many hard-and-fast grammar rules to keep in mind that must never be violated.If you have the idea before you start studying that your family does not provide you with basic support, will make you angry, ignore your requests, and make you do other things, you will feel at times. In danger, and with self-hatred, you may come to the conclusion that reading is too much work to be worth the trouble.If someone keeps sending you the message that you're too dumb to read (or have the equivalent of a dysfunction that makes reading too indifferent), and if you don't have anyone around you who contradicts that opinion, You are likely to accept such harmful advice.But there are always kids like Frederick Bailey who can beat the odds.And many people can't.

In addition, there is another special potential method. If you are poor, you may suffer another blow in reading and even in the way of thinking.Ann Druyan and I were born into families ravaged by poverty.But our parents are people who love reading.One of our grandmothers learned to read because her father, a subsistence farmer, once sold a bag of onions to a traveling teacher.In the years that followed for a century, she kept on reading.Our parents picked up on the hygiene and germ theory that was instilled in them in New York public schools.They learned the USDA-recommended nutritional formulas for children as if they had been passed down from the mountains of the Sinai Peninsula.They glued the pages of the official government book on children's health that had fallen apart from repeated reading.The book is also curled on all sides, and the main suggestions are underlined.Every time the family has a treatment problem, they turn to this book.There was a time when my parents quit smoking, which was one of the few joys they had during the Great Depression.This way their children can get a supplement of vitamins and minerals.Ann and I are very lucky. Recent studies have shown that many children who are undernourished also have reduced ability to understand and learn ("cognitive impairment").Children don't have to be on the brink of starvation for this damage to happen.Even one of the most common conditions among the poor in the United States, malnutrition, can cause this to happen.It can also happen in toddlerhood and childhood, before the baby is born, if the mother doesn't have enough food.When food is scarce, the human body has to decide how to deliver the limited food to where the body needs it most.Survival first, growth second.In this nutritional ratio, the body has to put learning last.The body is thinking that it is better to live foolishly than to die wisely. Unlike most healthy children who have a strong enthusiasm and interest in learning, malnourished children are always bored, disgusted or aloof.More severe forms of malnutrition lead to low birth weight and, in its worst form, small brains.What's more, even seemingly healthy children can experience a direct decline in their ability to concentrate due to iron deficiency.Iron deficiency may be harming one in four children from low-income families in the United States.It impairs concentration and memory in children, with consequences that have immediate consequences into adulthood. What once looked at the effects of relative undernutrition has now also been confirmed as a potential link to lifelong cognitive impairment.Children who are malnourished even for a short period of time can have a decline in learning.Millions of American children go hungry every week.Lead poisoning, a common disease in old towns, can also lead to severe learning disabilities.By many measures, poverty has gradually increased in the United States since the early 1980s.Roughly one in four American children is currently living in poverty, the highest rate of child poverty among industrialized nations.According to another survey, between 1980 and 1985 alone, more American infants and children died from uncontrollable disease, malnutrition and other horrific consequences of poverty than the total number of Americans died in the Vietnam War. want more. Programs to address malnutrition are commonly established by federal or state agencies.Special supplemental food programs for women, infants, and children, school breakfast and lunch programs, summer food supply programs, all of these efforts, while not meeting the needs of all those who need food, are making a difference.A country that is so rich should be well able to provide its children with adequate food. Some harmful effects of malnutrition can be reversed, for example, iron supplementation therapy can reverse the consequences of iron deficiency anemia, but not all damage can be reversed.Dyslexia, a variety of incoordination symptoms that impair the ability to read, may affect fifteen percent or more of us, whether you are rich or poor.The cause (physiological, psychological, or environmental) of the effect often cannot be determined.But there are many ways to help those with reading disabilities learn to read. It should be said that anyone can learn to read as long as they receive education.Yet, in many American schools, the method of teaching reading is like teaching students the dry and unacceptable hieroglyphics of an unknown civilization.Not even a single book can be found in many classrooms.Sadly, the demand for learning culture among adults far outstrips the supply.High-quality early childhood programs such as "Start From Scratch" are extremely successful in preparing children for education.But this plan can only take into account 1/4 to 1/3 of eligible preschool children, and many of the measures were affected in the implementation process due to funding problems.As I was writing this book, that program and the nutrition program I mentioned above were under attack by the newly formed Congress. The "From Scratch" project was published in 1994 and was criticized in the book "The Bell Curve" by Richard J. Hernstein and Charles Murray.Gerald Coles of the University of Rochester sums up the book's arguments as follows: First, setting up an underfunded program for poor children, then denying them any success against great odds, and finally concluding that because these children are mentally retarded, the program must be abolished. The book, which gained unexpected popularity in the mass media, argues that there are intractable genetic differences between blacks and whites that add up to 10 to 15 points on IQ tests.The psychologist Leon J. Cummings noted in a review: "The authors repeatedly erred in distinguishing between correlation and causation." one. The National Center for Family Literacy in Louisville, Kentucky, has implemented a series of reading programs targeting low-income families and their children and parents.The programs work in such a way that children aged three to four attend school three days a week with a parent, grandparent or guardian.In the morning adults learn basic cultural skills and children learn in preparatory classes.Parents and children then have lunch and spend the rest of the afternoon "learning how to learn together". A follow-up study of 14 such programs in three states showed that: (1) While all children were at risk and challenged with learning failure as preschoolers, only 10% were rated as There is such a danger. (2) More than 90% of the children are considered by their current primary school teachers to continue learning with encouragement. (3) No child is required to repeat a grade during primary school education. Improvements were also notable for parents.When people were asked whether the results of the family education program had changed their lives, we got several typical answers: the learning increased their self-confidence (almost everyone who participated in the study had this Feelings) and self-control, passed tertiary equivalency exams, entered university, found a new job, and greatly improved relationships with the children.The children's takeaway: more caring for their parents, more intellectual curiosity, and in some cases for the first time, the answer: confidence in the future.Similar programs can be implemented in the upper grades, teaching math, science, and more. Tyrants and dictators have always considered culture, learning, books and newspapers to be potentially dangerous.These things will install a sense of independence, even rebellion, into the minds of those they rule.The British Royal Governor of the Virginia Colony wrote in 1671: Thank God there are no free schools and no printed matter here.I hope that these things will not appear in the next 100 years.For learning would bring disobedience, heresy, and sects into the world, and print would bring them to the public and slander the best of governments.Thank God for saving us from the trouble these two things give us. But American neo-colonialists understand where freedoms can arise and try to avoid them. In the early days, America was boasted to be the most (perhaps the most) literate country in the world (slaves and women were not counted, of course).As early as 1635, there were already some public schools in Massachusetts. In 1647, the universality of compulsory education in all towns had reached more than 50% of the "households".In the next century and a half, educational democracy has spread throughout the country.Political theorists from all over the world came to the United States to witness this national miracle: a large number of ordinary practitioners could read and write.America's investment in education fueled inventions, created a vibrant democratic process, and generated the dynamics that fueled the continued growth of the national economy. Today, the United States no longer leads the world in terms of literacy.Many were assessed as non-readers who did not understand very simple written material such as books, instruction manuals, bus timetables, mortgage agreements, or election plans well below the level of a sixth-grade textbook.Today's sixth-grade textbooks fall short of the educational standards of decades ago, and the workplace is more demanding of workforce culture than ever. Poverty, ignorance, disappointment, and low self-esteem all combine to create a perpetual failure machine.It has crushed the dreams of generations.We bear the price of paying for the machine to work.The low level of literacy is a major part of the machine. Even if we can stand up to the humiliation and suffering of the victims, the cost of low literacy is heavy for everyone else: the cost of medical care and housing, the cost of crime and prisons, The cost of special education, the cost of lost productivity, and the cost of potentially brilliant minds to solve the problems that plague us. Frederick Douglass pointed out: Culture is the only way from slavery to freedom.There are all kinds of slavery and freedom in the world, but reading is always the way to seek freedom.Frederick Douglass after his escape When he was nearly 20 years old, he fled to freedom.He settled in New Bedford with his new wife, Anna Muley, and began to live the life of an ordinary worker.Four years later he was invited to a conference.In the North at that time, it was not easy to hear a famous speaker, that is, a white speaker, give a speech against slavery.But even among those who were opponents of slavery, many felt that slavery itself was somewhat inferior. On the evening of August 16, 1841, on the tiny island of Nantucket, most members of the Manchester Anti-Slavery Society listened reverently to the spread of some new idea: an voice of the system. His excellent manners and social graces shattered the then-popular myth that African-Americans were "naturally mean."His eloquent analysis of the evils of slavery has been hailed by all critics as one of the most brilliant chapters in the history of American speech.The leader who advocated the abolition of slavery at the time, William Louise Garretson, sat in the front row.When Douglas finished his speech, Garison stood up, turned to the audience who were captivated by Douglas's speech, and asked in a high voice: "Who gave the speech we just heard? A thing, a property, or a people?" "One person, one person!" The audience echoed in unison. "Should such a man be a slave in the kingdom of Christ?" cried Garison. "No! No!" the audience chanted again. Garethon raised his voice again: "Should such a character be sent back from the free lands of old Manchester to bondage?" Now the audience rose to their feet and loudly answered, "No! No! No!" He certainly did not return to slavery.He went on to work as an author, editor, magazine publisher, lectured in the United States and abroad, and became the first African-American to hold a senior advisory position in the U.S. government.In the following days, he has been fighting for human rights.During the Civil War, he served as an adviser to President Lincoln.Douglas also successfully advocated for arming former slaves to fight for the North.Organized vengeance of Union prisoners of war for executed African-American prisoners of war, and advocated the freedom of slaves as a major goal of the war. Many of his views are harsh without any affectation, which has won him many high-level friends: I declare without hesitation that the religion of the South is but a cover-up for its cruel crimes, an apology for its most horrific atrocities; A dark sanctuary where the darkest, dirtiest, meanest, most heinous deeds of a slaveholder find their strongest protection.If I were to be placed again under the yoke of slavery to suffer in slavery, I would contemplate being a slave to the master of this religion, and let the greatest disaster befall me. ... I ... hate the corruption, slavery, abuse of women, baby-snatching and bigoted Christianity in this country. Compared with the words and actions of some religiously inspired racists of that era and since, Douglas' claims do not seem exaggerated.In the era of black slaves, they often said that "slavery was arranged by God".As one of those loathsome post-Civil War examples, Charles Carroll in The Negro Is the Beast taught his devout readers that "both the Bible and the Apocalypse of St. John and common sense tell men that the Negro not human".More recently, some racists still object to what the stuff in DNA unequivocally proves, namely, that all races are not only human, but almost indistinguishable human beings.They regard the "Bible" as an "impregnable fortress" and oppose evidence research. It is worth mentioning here, however, that many of the ideas in abolition came out of Christianity, especially the Quakers and other groups in the North.Traditional Southern black Christian groups played an important role in the historic American civil rights struggle of the 1960s.Many of these leaders, such as the most prestigious Martin Luther King Jr., were ordained priests in those churches. Douglas said the following to the white community: Slavery has become the fetters of your progress, it is the enemy of human development, it is the deadly enemy of education; Hold to it as if it were the last rest of all your hopes. In 1843, during a lecture tour of Ireland shortly before the potato famine, he was struck by the dire poverty there.He wrote to Garison: "Many things I have seen here have brought me back to where I was before, and I confess I am ashamed that I am no longer against slavery in America. But I know that kindness is Goals to pursue and support." He was an outspoken opponent of policies that exterminated indigenous peoples.At the Seneca Fall Meeting of 1848, when Elizabeth Cady Stantine called for a push for women's suffrage, he was the only man of any ethnic group to express strong support. On the night of February 20, 1895, more than 30 years after emancipation, during a women's rights rally with Susan B. Anthony, he collapsed and never woke up.