With the school year now in full swing, it’s a good time to look at three figures from different periods in American history who had limited or even no formal education. We’ll focus on how Benjamin Franklin, Frederick Douglass, and Malcolm X compensated by making literacy acquisition a priority and then using their reading and writing skills to improve their own lives and American society.

Suggested reading & viewing:
The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin (1793), paragraphs 1-20
Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave (1845), Chapters VI-VII
Alex Haley and Malcolm X, The autobiography of Malcolm X ​(1965), Chapter 11