“If I have done anything for the colored people, it is in a great measure due to my having had the good-fortune, when I escaped from slavery, to become acquainted with William Lloyd Garrison, and with Wendell Phillips, and with our friend Oliver Johnson, and with Dr. Bowditch. The home of Dr. Bowditch, I may say, gave me the first shelter I received in this city. I have often been asked where I got my education. I have answered, from the Massachusetts Abolition University, Mr. Garrison, president… I meet with colored men on all sides smoking and sometimes drinking. That is not the way to rise in the world. For my own part, I neither smoke, nor chew tobacco nor take snuff, nor drink whiskey; and I should be delighted if I could make the same statement with regard to my whole people.”

— Frederick Douglass

Speech at the Wendell Phillips Club http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/the-nations-problem/ (11 September 1886). <br class="br">1880s

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Frederick Douglass274

American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman 1818–1895

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Frederick Douglass274

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