Frederick Douglass

By Douglas V. Gibbs
Author, Speaker, Instructor, Radio Host

A staunch supporter and defender of the U.S. Constitution, Frederick Douglass was born a slave in the State of Maryland in 1818. He escaped, and became a civil rights leader in the growing abolitionist movement. He advocated for education, believing that knowledge was the ultimate emancipator. He is the first black to hold a high U.S. Government rank. He learned to read asking poor white neighbor children to teach him to read in exchange for bread. He always carried a Webster's Spelling Book, and he met Abraham Lincoln three times.

Frederick Douglass – “Without education he lives within the narrow, dark and grimy walls of ignorance. Education, on the other hand, means emancipation. It means light and liberty. It means the uplifting of the soul of man into the glorious light of truth, the light by which men can only be made free. To deny education to any people is one of the greatest crimes against human nature. It is easy to deny them the means of freedom and the rightful pursuit of happiness and to defeat the very end of their being.”

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary