"At one time Mr. Douglass was travelling in the state of Pennsylvania, and was forced, on account of his colour, to ride in the baggage-car, in spite of the fact that he had paid the same price for his passage that the other passengers had paid. When some of the white passengers went into the baggage-car to console Mr. Douglass, and one of them said to him: "I am sorry, Mr. Douglass, that you have been degraded in this manner," Mr. Douglass straightened himself up on the box upon which he was sitting, and replied: "They cannot degrade Frederick Douglass. The soul that is within me no man can degrade. I am not the one that is being degraded on account of this treatment, but those who are inflicting it upon me…""
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Civil rights activistsEditors from the United StatesAbolitionistsPublishers from the United StatesJournalists from Maryland
Original Language: English
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Booker T. Washington, in Up from Slavery (1901), "Ch. VI: Black Race And Red Race", the penalty of telling the truth, of telling the simple truth, in answer to a series of strange questions.
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Frederick_Douglass
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Frederick Douglass
Frederick Douglass (c. February 1818 – 20 February 1895) was an American abolitionist, orator, author, editor, reformer, women's rights advocate, and statesman during the American Civil War. He was born a slave in Maryland, as Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey.
304 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Frederick Douglass →
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