“What has the artist done about it?”

This chapter informs the perspective of composition theory, is concerned not just with the pedagogical implications of Frederick Douglass's work for his own time but more so with current uses, and perhaps abuses, of Douglass's Romantic views of literacy acquisition as they apply to current pedagogical contexts. Indeed, many teachers credit Douglass's 1845 text with enormous pedagogical and self-actualizing potential, seeing it as a means to bring out for their students 'the best of who we are and what we can become'. Despite his acknowledgment that his Mistress's attempts at interdiction strengthened his commitment, Douglass, through a rhetoric of natural, individualistic rights, connects literacy acquisition with benevolent intentions as well as progress and unspecified enlightenment. The chapter argues that Douglass's belief that education and slaveholding were inimical points us to a context for understanding such statements and reveals a particularity to his views that might at first be obscured by his rhetorical flourishes.