On the record
An abandoned woman has only to start a cry, true or false, that she has been insulted by a black man, to have him arrested and summarily murdered by the mob.
Said by
Frederick Douglass
Source
gutenberg.orgAn abandoned woman has only to start a cry, true or false, that she has been insulted by a black man, to have him arrested and summarily murdered by the mob.
He highlights the vulnerability of Black men to false accusations from white women, leading to lynching.
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More from Frederick Douglass
It was in the air, and men breathed it and were permeated by it, often when they were quite unconscious of its presence.
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.
But we are not here to applaud manly courage, save as it has been displayed in a noble cause.