“It was not the race or the color of the Negro that won for him the battle of liberty.

I could see no reason why I should, at the end of each week, pour the reward of my honest toil into the purse of any man.” I could be robbed by indirection, but this was too open and barefaced to be endured.

“The practice, from week to week, of openly robbing me of all my earnings, kept the nature and character of slavery constantly before me.Let us remember Douglass in his own words, for they rank among the most memorable and persuasive in our past.

Among those in America who helped accomplish that noble objective, Frederick Douglass used words as weapons to amazing and lasting effect. A hundred years later, it was mostly gone and everywhere condemned. For centuries before 1800, slavery was common in the world and widely accepted. It should come as no surprise to learn that Frederick Douglass played a pivotal role in the transformation of the American conscience. In a 2018 article commemorating the 200th anniversary of his birth titled “ The Stirring Eloquence of Frederick Douglass,” I wrote: That’s good, but students should also become acquainted with the many black entrepreneurs, authors, sports achievers, medical professionals, musicians, and statesmen in American history, too.Ī leading candidate for the greatest black American ever would surely be the former slave and abolitionist orator Frederick Douglass. Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks, James Meredith, and numerous others. During Black History Month (February), students learn about civil rights activists of recent decades-Dr.

Frederick douglass the heroic slave