Frederick Douglass: “As I writhed under it, I would at times feel that learning to read had been a curse rather than a blessing.”

With money and property comes the means of knowledge and power.

We are no longer four millions of slaves, but six millions of freemen.

It is this, neither we, nor any other people, will ever be respected till we respect ourselves, and we will never respect ourselves till we have the means to live respectably.

None now denies the ability of the colored race to acquire knowledge of anything which can be communicated to the human understanding by letters.