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1
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Right is of no Sex-Truth is of no Color-- God is the Father of us all, and we are all Brethren.
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NORTH STAR MOTTO, MASTHEAD COMPONENT
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2
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I would give a woman a vote, give her a motive to qualify herself to vote, precisely as I insisted upon giving the colored man the right to vote.
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THE LIFE AND TIMES OF FREDERICK DOUGLASS, 1881
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3
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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. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation of tyrants, brass fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are, to him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy-a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages.
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"MEANING OF JULY FOURTH FOR THE NEGRO" SPEECH AT ROCHESTER, NEW YORK, JULY 5, 1852
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4
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If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who ~ favor freedom and yet deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, and it may be both moral and physical, but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.
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"WEST INDIA EMANCIPATION" SPEECH AT CANANDAIGUA, NEW YORK, AUGUST 4, 1857
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5
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Mankind differ as the waves, but they are one as the sea.
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EDITORIAL IN THE CHRISTIAN RECORDER, JOURNAL OF THE AFRICAN METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH, APRIL 18, 1895
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6
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When I ran away from slavery, it was for myself; when I advocated emancipation, it was for my people; but when I stood up for the rights of woman, self was out of the question.
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"THE WOMAN'S SUFFRAGE MOVEMENT" SPEECH TO THE WOMAN SUFFRAGE ASSOCIATION,
APRIL 1888
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7
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I would unite with anybody to do right and with nobody to do wrong.
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"THE ANTI-SLAVERY MOVEMENT" SPEECH TO THE ROCHESTER LADIES SOCIETY, JANUARY 1855
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8
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The man who is right is a majority. He who has God and conscience on his side, has a majority against the universe. Though he does not represent the present state, he represents the future state. If he does not represent what we are, he represents what we ought to be.
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"THE FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW" SPEECH TO THE NATIONAL FREE SOIL CONVENTION, AUGUST 1852
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9
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The American people have this lesson to learn, that where justice is denied; where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob, and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe.
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"SOUTHERN BARBARISM" SPEECH ON THE OCCASION OF THE 24TH ANNIVERSARY OF EMANCIPATION IN THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, WASHINGTON, DC, 1886
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9
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No, I make no pretension to patriotism. So long as my voice can be heard on this or the other side of the Atlantic, I will hold up America to the lightning scorn of moral indignation. In doing this, I shall feel myself discharging the duty of a true patriot; for he is a lover of his country who wobbles and does not excuse its sins.
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"AMERICAN SLAVERY" SPEECH AT MARKET HALL, NEW YORK CITY, OCTOBER 22, 1846
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10
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We are fighting for unity; unity of idea, unity of sentiment, unity of object, unity of institutions, in which there shall be no North, no South, no East, no West, no black, no white, but a solidarity of the nation, making every slave free, and every free man a voter.
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"OUR WORK Is NOT' DONE" SPEECH AT THE: ANNUAL MEETING OF THE AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCTETY, PHILADELFHIA,
DECEMBER 3-4, 1863
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11
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It is something to give the Negro religion. It is more to give him justice. It is something to give him the Bible; it is more to give him the ballot. It is something to tell him that there is a place for him in the Christian's heaven; it is more to let him have a place in this Christian country to live upon in peace.
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"OUR WORK Is NOT' DONE" SPEECH AT THE: ANNUAL MEETING OF THE AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCTETY, PHILADELFHIA,
DECEMBER 3-4, 1863
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12
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The story of our inferiority is an old dodge, as I have said; for whatever men oppress their fellows, wherever they enslave them, they will endeavor to find the needed apology for such enslavement and oppression in the character of the people oppressed and enslaved.
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"WHAT THE BLACK MAN WANTS" SPEECH AT THE ANNUAL MEETING OF THE MASSACHUSETTS ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY, BOSTON,
APRIL 1865
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13
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We have to do with the past only as we can make it useful to the present and to the future. To all inspiring motives, to noble deeds which can be gained from the past, we are welcome. But now is the time, the important time. Your fathers have lived, died, and you have done their work, and have done much of it well. You live and must die, and you must do your work.
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"THE MEANING OF JULY FOURTH FOR THE NEGRO" SPEECH AT ROCHESTER, NEW YORK,
JULY 5, 1852
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14
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It was a great thing for the friends of peace to organize in opposition to war; it was a great thing for the friends of temperance to organize against intemperance; it was a great thing for humane people to organize in opposition to slavery; but it was a much greater thing ... for woman to organize herself in opposition to her exclusion from participation in government.
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"THE WOMAN'S SUFFRAGE MOVEMENT" SPEECH TO THE WOMAN SUFFRAGE ASSOCIATION,
APRIL 1888
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15
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Standing as we do upon the watch-tower of human freedom, we cannot be deterred from an expression of our approbation of any movement, however humble, to improve and elevate the character and condition of any members of the human family.
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THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN, THE NORTH STAR, JUNE 28, 1848
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16
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I made up my mind wherever I go, I shall go as a man, and not as a slave ... I shall always aim to be courteous and mild in deportment towards all with whom I come in contact, at the same time firmly and constantly endeavoring to assert my equal right as a man and a brother.
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SPEECH TO THE AMERICAN COLONIZATION SOCIETY
FANUIL HALL, JUNE 6, 1849
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17
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Though I am more closely connected and identified with one class of outraged, oppressed and enslaved people, I can’t allow myself to be insensible to the wrongs and sufferings of any part of the great family of man. I am not only an American slave, but a man, and as such, am bound to use my powers for the welfare of the whole human brotherhood.
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LETTER FROM MONTROSE SCOTLAND, TO \\WI/ILLJAM LLOYD GARRISON, AMERICAN ABOLITIONIST LEADER
FEBRUARY 26, 1846
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18
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Men may combine to prevent cruelty to animals, for they are dumb and cannot speak for themselves; but we are men and must speak for ourselves, or we shall not be spoken for at all.
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"THE MEANING OF JULY FOURTH FOR THE NEGRO" SPEECH AT ROCHESTER, NEW YORK,
JULY 5, 1852
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19
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To those who have suffered is slavery I can say, I too have suffered…To those who have battled for liberty, brotherhood and citizenship I can say, I too, have battled.
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THE LIFE AND TIMES OF FREDERICK DOUGLASS, 1881
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20
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It may be said that I am growing old and am easily satisfied with things as they are. When our young men shall have worked and waited for victory as long as I have worked and waited, they will not only learn to have patience with the men opposed to them, but with me also for having patience with such.
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SPEECH TO THE BETHEL LITERARY AND HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION,
WASHINGTON, DC, OCTOBER 21, 1890
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21
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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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THE LIFE AND TIMES OF FREDERICK DOUGLASS, 1881
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22
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Our minds are made up to live here if we can, or die here if we must so every attempt to remove us will be, as it ought to be, labor lost. Here we are, and here we shall remain.
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“COLONIZATION,” EDITORIAL ON THE PROPOSAL TO SEND
AFRICAN AMERICANS TO COLONIZE LIBERIA
JANUARY 20, 1849
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23
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Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress. In the light of these ideas, Negroes will be hunted at the North and held and flogged at the South so long as they submit to those devilish outrages and make no resistance, either moral or physical. Men may not get all they pay for in this world, but they must certainly pay for all they get. If we ever get free from 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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"WEST INDIA EMANCIPATION" SPEECH AT CANANDAIGUA, NEW YORK, AUGUST 4, 1857
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24
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Neither we, nor any other people, will ever be respected till we ourselves, and we will never respect ourselves till we have the means to live respectably.
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THE LIFE AND TIMES OF FREDERICK DOUGLASS, 1881
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25
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Go where you may, search where you will, roam through all the monarchies and despotisms of the Old World, travel through South America, search out every abuse, and when you have found the last, lay your facts by the side of the everyday practices of this nation, and you will say with me, that, for revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival.
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"THE MEANING OF JULY FOURTH FOR THE NEGRO" SPEECH AT ROCHESTER, NEW YORK,
JULY 5, 1852
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26
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Negroes can never have impartial portraits at the hands of white artists. It sems to us next to impossible for white men to take likenesses of Black men, without most grossly exaggerating their distinctive features…”I am black but comely,” is as true now, as it was in the days of Solomon.
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REVIEW OF A “TRIBUTE FOR THE NEGRO,” BY WILSON ARMSTEAD
THE NORTH STAR, APRIL 7, 1849
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27
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In respect to political rights, we hold woman to be justly entitled to all we claim…All the political rights which it is expedient for man to exercise, it is equally so for woman
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“THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN,” THE NORTH STAR, JULY 28, 1848
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28
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I have stood on each side of Mason and Dixon's line; I have endured the frightful horrors of slavery, and have enjoyed the blessings of freedom. I can enter fully into the sorrows of the bondman and the blessings of freemen. I am one of yourselves, enduring daily the proscription and confronting the tide of malignant prejudice by which the free colored man of the North is continually and universally opposed.
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SPEECH PRINTED IN THE NORTH STAR, AUGUST 4, 1848
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29
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Attend the auction; see men examined like horses; see the forms
of women rudely and brutally exposed to the shocking gaze of American slave-buyers. See this drove sold and separated forever; and never forget the deep, sad sobs that arose from that scattered multitude. Tell me citizens, WHERE, under the sun, you can witness a spectacle more fiendish and shocking. Yet this is but a glance at the American slave-trade, as it exists, at this moment, in the ruling part of the United States.
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"THE MEANING OF JULY FOURTH FOR THE NEGRO" SPEECH AT ROCHESTER, NEW YORK,
JULY 5, 1852
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30
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Though slavery was abolished, the wrongs of my people were not ended. Though they were not slaves, they were not yet quite free. 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
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THE LIFE AND TIMES OF FREDERICK DOUGLASS, 1881
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