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Fugitive slaves were rare then, and as a fugitive slave lecturer, I had the advantage of being the first one out.

Frederick Douglass

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Frederick Douglass
Age: 77 †
Born: 1818
Born: February 14
Died: 1895
Died: February 20
Abolitionist
Autobiographer
Businessperson
Caulker
Diplomat
Editor
Film Editor
Journalist
Orator
Politician
Suffragist
Writer
Talbot County
Maryland
Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey
Frederick Augustus Washington Baly
Fred Bailey
Freddie Bailey
Firsts
First
Fugitive
Lecturer
Slaves
Rare
Slave
Advantage

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I know no class of my fellowmen, however just, enlightened, and humane, which can be wisely and safely trusted absolutely with the liberties of any other class.
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[...] allowing only ordinary ability and opportunity, we may explain success mainly by one word and that word is WORK! WORK!! WORK!!! WORK!!!! Not transient and fitful effort, but patient, enduring, honest, unremitting and indefatigable work into which the whole heart is put[...] There is no royal road to perfection.
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American labor rights activist, on activities of the National Farm Workers Association Human law may know no distinction among men in respect of rights, but human practice may.
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I could, as a free man, look across the bay toward the Eastern Shore where I was born a slave.
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Once you read, you will be free forever.
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I ask you...to adopt the principles proclaimed by yourselves, by your revolutionary fathers, and by the old bell in Independence Hall.
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These were choice documents to me... They gave tongue to interesting thoughts of my own soul, which had frequently flashed through my mind, and died away for want of utterance.
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If we ever get free from all the oppressions and wrongs heaped upon us, we must pay for their removal. We must do this by labor, by suffering, by sacrifice, and, if needs be, by our lives, and the lives of others.
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Yet people in general will say they like colored men as well as any other, but in their proper place.
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If I have advocated the cause of the Negro, it is not because I am a Negro, but because I am a man.
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Everybody has asked the question . . . 'What shall we do with the Negro?' I have had but one answer from the beginning. Do nothing with us! Your doing with us has already played the mischief with us. Do nothing with us!
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... and in thinking of my life, I almost forgot my liberty.
Frederick Douglass
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It was a glorious resurrection, from the tomb of slavery, to the heaven of slavery. My long-crushed spirit rose, cowardice departed, bold defiance took its place and I now resolved that, however long I might remain a slave in form, the day had passed forever when I could be a slave in fact.
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When men sow the wind it is rational to expect that they will reap the whirlwind.
Frederick Douglass
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I have no protection at home, or resting place abroad. ... I am an outcast from the society of my childhood, and an outlaw in the land of my birth. I am a stranger with thee, and a sojourner as all my fathers were.
Frederick Douglass
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What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July? I answer: A day that reveals to him, more than all other days of the year, the gross injustices and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him your celebration is a sham.
Frederick Douglass
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Now, take the Constitution according to its plain reading, and I defy the presentation of a single pro-slavery clause in it. On the other hand it will be found to contain principles and purposes, entirely hostile to the existence of slavery.
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A man, at times, gets something for nothing, but it will, in his hands, amount to nothing.
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The opposite of compromise is character.
Frederick Douglass
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I glory in the conflict, that I may hereafter exult in the victory. I know that victory is certain.
Frederick Douglass