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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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Frederick Douglass
Age: 77 †
Born: 1818
Born: February 14
Died: 1895
Died: February 20
Abolitionist
Autobiographer
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Talbot County
Maryland
Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey
Frederick Augustus Washington Baly
Fred Bailey
Freddie Bailey
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More quotes by Frederick Douglass

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You are not judged by the height you have risen, but from the depth you have climbed.
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Right is of no sex, truth is of no color.
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Some know the value of education by having it. I know it's value by not having it.
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I recognize the Republican Party as the sheet anchor of the colored man's political hopes and the ark of his safety.
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Did John Brown fail? John Brown began the war that ended American slavery and made this a free Republic.
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Fortune may crowd a man's life with fortunate circumstances and happy opportunities, but they will, as we all know, avail him nothing unless he makes a wise and vigorous use of them.
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We have to do with the past only as we can make it useful to the present and the future.
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He who would be free must strike the first blow.
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...I recognize the widest possible difference-so wide, that to receive the one as good, pure, and holy, is of necessity to reject the other as bad, corrupt, and wicked. To be the friend of one, is of necessity to be the enemy of the other.
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We are Americans, speaking the same language, adopting the same customs, holding the same general opinions... and shall rise and fall with Americans.
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Every tone was a testimony against slavery, and a prayer to God for deliverance from chains.
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Shields Green was not one to shrink from hardships or dangers. He was a man of few words, and his speech was singularly broken but his courage and self-respect made him quite a dignified character.
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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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Praying for freedom never did me any good til I started praying with my feet.
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Man's greatness consists in his ability to do and the proper application of his powers to things needed to be done.
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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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I know of no rights of race superior to the rights of humanity...
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Our destiny is largely in our hands.
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This war, disguise it as they may, is virtually nothing more or less than perpetual slavery against universal freedoms.
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You have to take power. No one gives it.
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