We are often asked with an air of reproach by white men at the North: “Why don’t your people fight their way to the ballot-box?” The question adds insult to injury.
Frederick Douglass: “We are often asked with an air of reproach by white men at the North: “Why don’t your people fight their way to the…”
Editor's note · Context
Douglass critiques the misconception that African Americans should resort to violence to gain voting rights.
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I wished it was possible I could remain small all my life, knowing that the sooner I grew large the shorter would be my time to remain with them.
This was a new and special revelation, dispelling a painful mystery against which my youthful understanding had struggled, and struggled in vain, to wit, the white man’s power to perpetuate the enslavement of the black man.
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.
The anti-slavery platform had performed its work, and my voice was no longer needed.