Frederick Douglass has spent his entire life of misery in search for one thing, happiness, or enlightenment. Douglass knew that reaching enlightenment was not an easy task for colored people like him in the mid 1800s, but that did not discourage him. Douglass’s realizations for how to reach enlightenment were in correlation to Immanuel Kant’s philosophies on enlightenment. Kant once advised those seeking enlightenment to, “have courage to make use of yourown understanding! is thus the motto of enlightenment”(Kant 1). What he is saying is that in order to reach enlightenment, one much think for themselves and find their own way to enlightenment, without being influenced by traditional societal perceptions. Douglass followed this motto and took the initiative to learn how to read and write in order to become educated. After becoming educated, a train that was not very common amongst colored people in the mid 1800s, Douglass soon realized what his own self-worth was. He then realized that his life, as well as the lives of all the other colored people, was not to be subjective to other people. Thus began his journey in spreading the message and helping lead other people into enlightenment, by educating people and teaching them how to think for themselve