Frederick Douglass: “I was an ex-slave, identified with a despised race; and yet I was to meet the most exalted person in this great…”

The friendless and hungry boy, in his extremest need, found himself in the strong protecting arms of his mother.

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.

True it is that this faith was many times shaken by passing events, but never destroyed.

The laws which determine the destinies of individuals and nations are impartial and eternal.