On the recordJanuary 1, 1881
In times past we have been the hewers of wood and drawers of water for American society, and we once enjoyed a monopoly in menial employments, but this is so no longer.
Said by
Frederick Douglass
Source
gutenberg.orgIn times past we have been the hewers of wood and drawers of water for American society, and we once enjoyed a monopoly in menial employments, but this is so no longer.
From his autobiography, Douglass observes the historical economic role of Black Americans and its decline in the post-Civil War era.
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The father might be a white man, glorying in the purity of his Anglo-Saxon blood, and his child ranked with the blackest slaves.
I wished it was possible I could remain small all my life, knowing that the sooner I grew large the shorter would be my time to remain with them.
We could not but believe that there existed at the South a latent and powerful Union sentiment which would assert itself at last.
Father he might be, and not be husband, and could sell his own child without incurring reproach, if in its veins coursed one drop of African blood.