Frederick Douglass: “Though we have had war, reconstruction and abolition as a nation, we still linger in the shadow and blight of an extinct…”

To-day the negro, starting from nothing, pays taxes upon six millions in Georgia, and forty millions in Louisiana.

Nothing but the shot-gun or the bull-dozer’s whip can keep them from voting their convictions.

Another ground of hope for our race is in the progress of education.

Still another ground of hope I find in the fact that colored men are strong in their gratitude to benefactors, and firm in their political convictions.