"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."
"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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Source: William Wells Brown (2012). “The Narrative of William Wells Brown, A Fugitive Slave”, p.16, Simon and Schuster
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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."
"I was not only hunting for my liberty, but also hunting for my name."
"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."
"Someone must show that the Afro-American race is more sinned against than sinning, and it seems to have fallen to me to do so. The awful death roll called every week is appalling, not only because of the lives taken, the cruelty and outrage to the victims, but because of the prejudice it fosters."