Allow Us The Dignity To Fight For

From My Earliest Recollection, I Date The Entertainment Of A Deep Conviction That Slavery Would Not Always Be Able To Hold Me Within Its Foul Embrace; And In The Darkest Hours Of My Career In Slavery, This Living Word Of Faith And Spirit Of Hope Departed Not From Me, But Remained Like Ministering Angels To Cheer Me Through The Gloom. This Good Spirit Was From God, And To Him I Offer Thanksgiving And Praise.

What I Ask For The Negro Is Not Benevolence, Not Pity, Not Sympathy, But Simply Justice.

I Didn't Know I Was A Slave Until I Found Out I Couldn't Do The Things I Wanted.

Allow Us The Dignity To Fight For Our Own Freedom

I Have Often Wished Myself A Beast. I Preferred The Condition Of The Meanest Reptile To My Own. Any Thing, No Matter What, To Get Rid Of Thinking! It Was This Everlasting Thinking Of My Condition That Tormented Me. There Was No Getting Rid Of It. It Was Pressed Upon Me By Every Object Within Sight Or Hearing, Animate Or Inanimate.