Frederick Douglass and the Bread for Letters

Frederick was born into slavery in Maryland, and there was a rule about boys like him: they were not allowed to learn to read.

But when Frederick was small, the woman of the house began to teach him his letters — A, B, C — until someone told her to stop. Reading, they said, would make him want to be free.

They were right. And it was already too late.

Frederick had seen how the marks on a page could turn into words, and words into whole worlds, and he was not going to give that up. So he made a plan.

Whenever his mistress sent him on errands, he took a piece of bread in his pocket. Out in the street he would find boys who could read, and he would trade — a bite of bread for a lesson. One letter. Then another. Then a word.

Little by little, in doorways and on corners, Frederick taught himself to read.

When he grew up he escaped to the north, and he used those hard-won words everywhere. He wrote books. He started a newspaper — and he called it the North Star, after the star that showed people the way to freedom. He spoke to enormous crowds, and presidents listened.

All of it from a boy with a crust of bread, learning his letters in the street.

Goodnight, little reader.