Background Behind my Choice

          For my second essay, I chose to use Frederick Douglass's "What to a Slave" speech to argue the importance and significance if giving African Americans citizenship and equal rights. I chose this over the other two choices of women's suffrage and the Native American struggle for equality for several reasons. The first reason is because I think African Americans were living in the worst conditions America had ever put its people through. This would just make my argument stronger and help with a lot of the points I made. The bigger reason I chose this is because I felt the most empathy towards the African American movement. I don't mean to sound ignorant, but since I'm not a woman or grow up knowing any anyone from Native American decent, those two movements don't resonate with me as strongly. I find it harder to put myself in the shoes of those that fought those battles back then; however, I grew up in a predominately black neighborhood and school so relating to them comes easier to me. I was one of only a few non-black students in my elementary school and had black friends throughout my entire childhood, even until moving to Norman I surrounded myself with black friends. Growing up, I saw the conditions some of my classmates were growing up in and I can recognize that struggle. I knew young men that aren't here today because of their choices and the environment they were brought up in. I thankfully never experienced the hardships they had to face, but just seeing it taught me a lot and helped me to empathize with their cause. This is why I chose to write about this subject and hopefully motivate change in those communities across America.