Frederick Douglass: “The contrast between the old time of slavery and the new dispensation of liberty looms upon us on every hand.”

The friendless and hungry boy, in his extremest need, found himself in the strong protecting arms of his mother.

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

Knowledge unfits a child to be a slave.” I instinctively assented to the proposition, and from that moment I understood the direct pathway from slavery to freedom.

It was in the air, and men breathed it and were permeated by it, often when they were quite unconscious of its presence.