Frederick Douglass
The Public Record
Frederick Douglass was an American social reformer, abolitionist, orator, writer, and statesman. He was "the most important leader of the movement for African-American civil rights in the 19th century".
★ Featured Quote
January 1, 1881
To make a man a slave was to rob him of moral responsibility.
— Frederick Douglass
Jan 1, 1881
Knowledge unfits a child to be a slave.” I instinctively assented to the proposition, and from that moment I understood the direct pathway from slavery to freedom.
Jan 1, 1881
The good to be sought and the evil to be shunned were flung in the balance and weighed against each other.
Jan 1, 1881
It had no interest in recognizing or preserving any of the ties that bind families together or to their homes.
Jan 1, 1881
This was a new and special revelation, dispelling a painful mystery against which my youthful understanding had struggled, and struggled in vain, to wit, the white man’s power to perpetuate the enslavement of the black man.
Jan 1, 1881
The friendless and hungry boy, in his extremest need, found himself in the strong protecting arms of his mother.
Jan 1, 1881
I believed I should get enough to eat at Covey’s, even if I suffered in other respects, and this to a hungry man is not a prospect to be regarded with indifference.
Jan 1, 1881
True it is that this faith was many times shaken by passing events, but never destroyed.