Frederick Douglass
Frederick Douglass
Frederick Douglasswas an African-American social reformer, abolitionist, orator, writer, and statesman. After escaping from slavery in Maryland, he became a national leader of the abolitionist movement from Massachusetts and New York, gaining note for his dazzling oratory and incisive antislavery writings. In his time he was described by abolitionists as a living counter-example to slaveholders' arguments that slaves lacked the intellectual capacity to function as independent American citizens. Northerners at the time found it hard to believe that such a...
ProfessionAutobiographer
Date of Birth14 February 1818
CityTalbot County, MD
The chance is now given you to end in a day the bondage of centuries, and to rise in one bound from social degradation to the place of common equality with all other varieties of men
Without a struggle, there can be no progress.
Mr. Lincoln was not only a great President, but a great man - too great to be small in anything. In his company I was never in any way reminded of my humble origin, or of my unpopular color.
The thing worse than rebellion is the thing that causes rebellion.
At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed.
I assert most unhesitatingly, that the religion of the South is a mere covering for the most horrid crimes—a justifier of the most appalling barbarity…a shelter under…which the darkest, foulest, grossest, and most infernal deeds of slaveholders find the strongest protection
Freedom is a road seldom traveled by the multitude.
I hear the mournful wail of millions!
The life of the nation is secure only while the nation is honest, truthful, and virtuous.
Let us render the tyrant no aid.
This Fourth of July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn.
It's a poor rule that won't work both ways.
Intelligence is a great leveler here as elsewhere
Abolition of slavery had been the deepest desire and the great labor of my life