Their words
“You have seen how a man was made a slave; you shall see how a slave was made a man.”
Source: Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave (1845), chapter X
Context In his first autobiography, published seven years after his escape, this line introduces his account of the August 1833 fight in which he resisted the slave-breaker Edward Covey.
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More words from Frederick Douglass
“Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.”
Frederick Douglass United States♥ 0
“What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim.”
Frederick Douglass United States♥ 0
“The feeling of the nation must be quickened; the conscience of the nation must be roused; the propriety of the nation must be startled; the hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed.”
Frederick Douglass United States♥ 0
“The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.”
Frederick Douglass United States♥ 0
“I have found that, to make a contented slave, it is necessary to make a thoughtless one.”
Frederick Douglass United States♥ 0
“I would unite with anybody to do right; and with nobody to do wrong.”
Frederick Douglass United States♥ 0
More words from Politics & Liberation
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