assessment

African Americans were not considered equal to their white counterparts before the passage of the Civil Right Act of 1964. They were not allowed to use the same restrooms, eat in the same restaurants and worst of all, they were forbidden to be educated. Slave owners and many white people were determined to keep slaves and free blacks illiterate for the sole purpose of keeping them ignorant and prevent insurrection such as Ned Turner Uprising which killed 31 white Southerners from occurring. These white people feared that once educated, blacks would feel resentment towards their treatments by the white race. Punishments included beatings, heavy fines, and public humiliation for those who made attempts to teach slaves to read. These severe punishments were very successful in keeping blacks ignorance about their identity and their treatment. Yet these strict rules did not prevent Frederick Douglass and Richard Wright from an education. In their writings, they risk everything just to learn...