Frederick Douglass: “Why was not this charge made at that time as now?”

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.

I looked into this kitchen with peculiar interest, and remembered that it was there I last saw my mother.

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.

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