Frederick Douglass: “These holidays serve as conductors, or safety-valves, to carry off the rebellious spirit of enslaved humanity.”

The day we celebrate is preëminently the colored man’s day.

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.

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.

Covey succeeded in breaking me--in body, soul, and spirit.