would attack the institutional laws that maintained black Americans as vastly unequal from their white counterparts. In his famous missive from legal captivity for protesting on behalf of equal rights, King articulated how it was that the Civil Rights movement could at once work to utilize laws to change institutional segregation and simultaneously resist Jim Crow laws still in effect. Meditating on the subject, King remarked, "One may well ask:

Stressing the shackles that slavery could latch to a man's mind, Douglass was given insight into the inherent transgression behind the bondage. And his ability to adopt such a perspective, while easy to underestimate from the distance of over a century, is quite remarkable given the overwhelming social constructions designed to deter that sort of thinking amongst his demographic. One of the more effective messages that he conveyed both

Benjamin Franklin and Frederick Douglas Indeed, in both Benjamin Franklin's An Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin and Frederick Douglas's A Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglas, An American Slave, we, as readers, are told the stories of two men who faced adversity, and with much hard work and courage, were able to overcome the obstacles that stood in their way in order to become influential and important men in America. Interestingly

Frederick Douglass' involvement in the women's rights movement of the nineteenth century, and where Douglass stood on women's rights. Douglass was an orator, a statesman, and an outspoken proponent of civil rights for all who were oppressed, even women. His stand on rights and dignity for all mankind has made him one of the most enduring freedom fighters Americans have ever known. He worked hard for women's freedom as

Work Ethic: Douglass and FranklinIntroductionAlthough they lived in different centuries and had very different backgrounds, Frederick Douglass and Benjamin Franklin share many similarities. Both men were born into humble beginnings but rose to become widely respected leaders. They were both self-educated and used their writing talents to further their causes. And both men were tireless advocates for the rights of others, whether it was Douglass fighting for the freedom of

Franklin's autobiography demonstrates a truly American kind of businessman, because he so neatly embodies all of the assumptions and logical fallacies that American capitalism depends on in order to justify its dominance in an ostensibly equitable and representative society. Where Franklin's autobiography demonstrates the peculiar appeal to divine right that is used to justify the inequity of American capitalism, Herman Melville's Bartleby the Scrivener demonstrates the almost willful obtuseness necessary