Malevolence...Frederick Douglass

"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."

--Frederick Douglass

Respectability Defined...Frederick Douglass

"A gentleman will not insult me, and no man not a gentleman can insult me."

--Frederick Douglass

Madame Tussauds' Frederick Douglass 

In Times Like These, We Need Fire....Frederick Douglass

In a speech on July 4, 1852 about the hypocrisy and irony of the United States celebrating Independence Day while black people were suffering the ills of slavery and racism, Frederick Douglass said:

"At a time like this... For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake. The feeling of the nation must be quickened; the conscience of the nation must be roused; the propriety of the nation must be startled; the hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed; and its crimes against God and man must be denounced."

Frederick Douglass, Author, Editor, Abolitionist, Suffragist, and Diplomat (Speech, 4th of July, Rochester, New York, 1852)