The Struggle Ahead

Frederick Douglass, the "Lion of Anacostia" who was born a slave and became a fervent abolitionist was accused in his time of being too cozy with the white oppressors. He understood that to become an effective political voice, he needed to make some concessions but he was always conscious of the long, difficult struggle that would demand great sacrifice in order to accomplish great works: "If there is no struggle there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom and yet deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, and it may be both moral and physical, but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will."