I would, sometimes, say to them, while seated on a curb stone or a cellar door, “I wish I could be free, as you will be when you get to be men.” “You will be free, you know, as soon as you are twenty-one, and can go where you like, but I am a slave for life.
Douglass reflects on the stark contrast between his enslaved status and the freedom of his white peers, highlighting the injustice of slavery.
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A son of toil himself, he was linked in brotherly sympathy with the sons of toil in every loyal part of the republic.
My grandmother was all the world to me, and the thought of being separated from her was a most unwelcome suggestion to my affections and hopes.
True it is that this faith was many times shaken by passing events, but never destroyed.