The Power of Slave Stories: The influence of Fredrick Douglass and his fight for emancipation will always be a source of inspiration. Douglass's story, as articulated in The Narrative of the Life of Fredrick Douglass, has remained influential on those seeking freedom from oppression and has maintained a tangible position in African-American popular culture. American. Douglass demonstrates the availability of counter-hegemonic ideologies, but also provides a guide to achieving bodily and racial action. For Douglass, reading was a path to liberation. A careful reading of his account also suggests that music was a fundamental part of his situation. An inspiration for this article is Douglass' account of learning his ABCs. Douglass remembers when Mr. Auld scolds his wife, Mrs. Auld, for teaching Douglass. The reason Douglass should not be educated is heartbreaking: "Give a nigger an inch, he'll take a yard." A nigger should know nothing but to obey his master, to do what he is told to do. Learning would spoil the best Negro in the world” (Douglass 45). Therefore, this indulgence statement is caused by reading and literacy. Education gives Douglass the tools to question his existence, resulting in an awareness of oppression. So, with the ability to read and write, he could escape by literally and figuratively writing his own pass to freedom. From this, Douglass realizes that "...the path from slavery to freedom" was through education and that "...the argument that [Mr. Auld] so heartily opposed my learning to read, only seemed to inspire in me the desire and determination to learn. » (Douglass 46). Passion and perseverance force Douglass to exchange...... middle of paper...... Word: The reclamation of bodily, spiritual, and racial power and agency circumvents social and political modes of oppression. Scholars often emphasize the power of the word or Nommo as a means of communicating power and penetrating subjugation. Halifu Osumare in The Africanist Aesthetic and Global Hip-Hop critically examines Nommo as a path to emancipation. As Osumare argues, "allows us to try on our possible identities because they exist, at least during performance, outside the realities of power, and therefore provide a brief foray into a realm of possibility beyond social boundaries established” (Osumare 83). . Through Nommo, a form of emancipation was manifested even if the body was still held in slavery. Once the word was sung and the sound traveled between ear, mind, and mouth, no slave owner could possess and control the power of the word..