"This is called 'the land of the free and the home of the brave'; it is called the 'asylum of the oppressed,' and some have been foolish enough to call it the 'Cradle of Liberty.' If it is the 'Cradle of Liberty,' they have rocked the child to death."
"I was not only hunting for my liberty, but also hunting for my name."
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Source: William Wells Brown (2003). “The Narrative of William W. Brown, a Fugitive Slave”, p.43, Courier Corporation
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"The duty I owe to the slave, to truth, and to God, demands that I should use my pen and tongue so long as life and health are vouchsafed to me to employ them, or until the last chain shall fall from the limbs of the last slave in America and the world."
"The last great struggle for our rights; the battle for our own civilization, is entirely with ourselves, and the problem is to be solved by us."
"All I demand for the black man is, that the white people shall take their heels off his neck, and let him have a chance to rise by his own efforts."
"Though slavery is thought, by some, to be mild in Missouri, when compared with the cotton, sugar and rice growing states, yet no part of our slave-holding country is more noted for the barbarity of its inhabitants than St. Louis."
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