Frederick Douglass: “Thanks for this one beam of hope in the future.”

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

None now denies the ability of the colored race to acquire knowledge of anything which can be communicated to the human understanding by letters.

Still another ground of hope I find in the fact that colored men are strong in their gratitude to benefactors, and firm in their political convictions.

The nation or people which shall comply with them will rise, and those which violate them will fall, and perhaps will disappear altogether.