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From the first I saw no chance of bettering the condition of the freedman until he should cease to be merely a freedman and should become a citizen.
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
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Journalist
Orator
Politician
Suffragist
Writer
Talbot County
Maryland
Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey
Frederick Augustus Washington Baly
Fred Bailey
Freddie Bailey
Saws
Citizens
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Bettering
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More quotes by Frederick Douglass
I know of no rights of race superior to the rights of humanity...
Frederick Douglass
Did John Brown fail? John Brown began the war that ended American slavery and made this a free Republic.
Frederick Douglass
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
Frederick Douglass
He who is whipped oftenest, is whipped easiest.
Frederick Douglass
Freedom now appeared, to disappear no more forever... I saw nothing without seeing it, I heard nothing without hearing it, and felt nothing without feeling it. It looked from every star, it smiled in every calm, breathed in every wind, and moved in every storm.
Frederick Douglass
We have to do with the past only as we can make it useful to the present and the future.
Frederick Douglass
We are Americans, speaking the same language, adopting the same customs, holding the same general opinions... and shall rise and fall with Americans.
Frederick Douglass
To suppress free speech is a double wrong. It violates the rights of the hearer as well as those of the speaker.
Frederick Douglass
I escaped from slavery and became a leading abolitionist and speaker.
Frederick Douglass
In the struggle for justice, the only reward is the opportunity to be in the struggle. You can't expect that you're going to have it tomorrow. You just have to keep working on it.
Frederick Douglass
A man, at times, gets something for nothing, but it will, in his hands, amount to nothing.
Frederick Douglass
Yet people in general will say they like colored men as well as any other, but in their proper place.
Frederick Douglass
No man can be truly free whose liberty is dependent upon the thought, feeling and action of others, and who has himself no means in his own hands for guarding, protecting, defending and maintaining that liberty
Frederick Douglass
Slaves are generally expected to sing as well as to work.
Frederick Douglass
I had as well be killed running as die standing
Frederick Douglass
The Federal Government was never, in its essence, anything but an anti-slavery government.
Frederick Douglass
It is not light that we need, but fire it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake.
Frederick Douglass
What I ask for the Negro is not benevolence, not pity, not sympathy, but simply justice.
Frederick Douglass
Men of Color, To Arms! The case is before you. This is our golden opportunity. Let us accept it, and forever wipe out the dark reproaches unsparingly hurled against us by our enemies. Let us win for ourselves the gratitude of our country, and the best blessings of our posterity through all time.
Frederick Douglass
To drag a man in fetters into the grand illuminated temple of liberty, and call upon him to join you in joyous anthems, were inhuman mockery and sacrilegious irony.
Frederick Douglass
