Literacy in the Graphic Adaptation of“The Life Frederick Douglass”

David Walker, Damon Smyth, and Marissa Louise’s graphic adaptation of Frederick Douglass’ life, The Life of Frederick Douglass, begins by foregrounding the role that literacy played in Douglass’ escape from enslavement, activism, and throughout his life. As well, it highlights the ways that literacy empowers individuals to fight for their humanity when others seek to deny them their very existence. At this moment, we would do well to heed to this lesson in the face of legislation that seeks to limit individuals’ access to knowledge in educational and public settings. Today, I want to look at a couple of moments in The Life of Frederick Douglass that drive home this theme.

The graphic adaptation opens with six panels, over the course of two pages, showing Douglass staring out of his window at us, on the outside, and then sitting down at his desk to write. The first panel, where he gazes at us, the reader, invites us into his home, to join him as he begins to tell us about his life. The next panel shows him looking at a fountain pen as he gets ready to dip it into the ink well, and Smyth’s third panel focuses on the pen rising from the ink well as ink drips down. In this panel, Douglass narrates, “The name by which I am best known, Frederick Douglass, was taken after my escape from slavery, as I embarked on a new life as a free man.”