Strange and even ridiculous as it may seem, among a people so uncultivated and with so many stern trials to look in the face, there is not to be found among any people a more rigid enforcement of the law of respect to elders than is maintained among them.
From his autobiography, Douglass observes the profound and unwavering respect for elders that characterized the social customs of enslaved people.
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It only abolished slavery where it did not exist, and left it intact where it did exist.
The sentiment that brings us here to-day is one of the noblest that can stir and thrill the human heart.
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.
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.