Frederick Douglass, an escaped slave, abolitionist lecturer and writer, social reformer, statesman, and adviser to President Abraham Lincoln, believed that education was the link between freedom and slavery. Not only did he believe that education was the link, but so did his slaveholders. Slaveholders believed that if they kept their slaves ignorant, they would never develop the feeling of discontentment towards being enslaved.

Unlike most slaves, Frederick Douglass knew what it was like to be free, even before he was physically free. He learned to read by giving poor white kids food in exchange for helping him learn to read. After learning to read, he developed a passion for abolitionist literature. By educating himself, Douglass opened his mind to all the possibilities of life as a free man, and he developed that feeling of discontentment that slaveholders were so worried about.

Even though we are hundreds of years removed from the “traditional” form of slavery, it still exist today. It’s now called the prison system. Think about it. In the prison system there are young brothers locked up, told when to eat, when to sleep, when they can have recreational time, and they work for very low wages, and just like hundreds of years ago, the majority of these new slaves are African American men.

Study shows that among black men who drop out of high school, which is estimated at 40 percent, 72 percent are jobless, and the chances of being incarcerated is about 60 percent. Do you see the link between the lack of education and prison?

Without a good education, competing in today’s job market is not impossible but improbable. As the opportunity to compete for a decent job decreases, the opportunity to get involved in unlawful acts increases, causing our young brothers to become slaves to the state.

What’s frustrating for the educator is our young brothers, unlike hundreds of years ago, have a choice be free or imprisoned. They make the choice to become slaves. Born into slavery, Frederick Douglass didn’t have that choice. However, slavery didn’t deny him the opportunity to become educated. He knew that through education, the possibility of being free was within sight. A good example of this would come through dialogue that Douglass read about in the Columbian Orator.

When Frederick Douglass was about twelve years old, he came in contact with a book entitled the Columbian Orator. Every opportunity that he got, he was reading this book. In this book was a story containing dialogue between a slave and his master. The slave was said to have run away from his master three times. Upon the third time of being retaken, the master and the slave had an in depth conversation. The conversation consisted of the master’s argument on the behalf of slavery and the slave’s argument against slavery. The slave was said to have given some very smart and impressive responses on his behalf, which resulted in the slave being voluntarily emancipated by his master. 

This was one of many stories that inspired Douglass. He was determined to become educated, but a lot of our young brothers today fail to show that same type of relentless determination.

The economic landscape has changed over the last 20 years. Due to the recession that knocked America back on her heels, gone are the days when the high school graduate could land a factory job; which would give someone with no higher education the promise of employment for the next 20 to 25 years and a pension that would launch him and his family into the middle class. In today’s economy, you’re seeing people with Master’s degrees in the unemployment lines.

So where does that leave the brother without the high school diploma? It leaves that brother out in the cold world like a contestant on an old episode of Survivor. It leaves that brother with the tools needed, or lack thereof, to obtain a ticket for a one way trip to prison, where he becomes a slave to the state. He becomes a part of a system that’s not designed for rehabilitation nor does it, in most cases, prepare him to be successful in the real world. So when he’s sent back out into the world he’s met with opposition by people not willing to give him a second chance. His one way trip then becomes a round trip.

The good news is we have the choice between being slaves and free black men. We can choose to educate ourselves and give ourselves a chance to compete in an ever changing job market and for a shot at what’s left of the, what seems to be the allusive, American Dream; or we can choose not be educated and possibly become a part of a system that is reminiscent to the system that had Frederick Douglass bound for years, during which he discovered the link between freedom and slavery.

BlackCommentator.com Guest Commentator George E. Stewart II is an educator, writer, and youth mentor. His mission is to motivate and inspire the youth to become innovators and leaders in their community.  George uses writing as another vehicle to get his voice heard. His writings have appeared on suite101.com,mybrotha.com, and thefreshxpress.com Through his writing, he hopes to encourage and motivate parents and community leaders/members to get involved in the educational process. Click here to contact Mr. Stewart.