Frederick Douglass: “There was neither joy in my heart, nor elasticity in my step, as I started in search of the tyrant’s home.”

My grandmother was all the world to me, and the thought of being separated from her was a most unwelcome suggestion to my affections and hopes.

It was in the air, and men breathed it and were permeated by it, often when they were quite unconscious of its presence.

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.

Our very lack of preparation for the conflict disposed us to look for some other than the way of blood out of the difficulty.