Frederick Douglass: “Must I undertake to prove that the slave is a man?”

On the record

Must I undertake to prove that the slave is a man?

Said by

Frederick Douglass

Source

Douglass challenges the audience to recognize the humanity of enslaved individuals, questioning the need for proof of their personhood.

More from Frederick Douglass

Jan 1, 1881

Nothing but the shot-gun or the bull-dozer’s whip can keep them from voting their convictions.

Jan 1, 1881

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

Jan 1, 1881

In any fair condition of things the men who till the soil will become proprietors of the soil.

Jan 1, 1881

Everywhere in the south the colored man is learning to read.