On August 3, 1857, Frederick Douglass delivered a “West India Emancipation” speech at Canandaigua, New York, on the twenty-third anniversary of the event. Most of the address was a history of British efforts toward emancipation as well as a reminder of the crucial role of the West Indian slaves in that own freedom struggle. However shortly after he began Douglass sounded a foretelling of the coming Civil War when he uttered two paragraphs that became the most quoted sentences of all of his public orations. They began with the words, “If there is no struggle, there is no progress.” 
Dedicated to the continuing Spirit of Trayvon Martin
Dedicated to the continuing Spirit of Trayvon Martin
How will African American artists and historians commemorate, and reflect on this moment of: "...another [young] man done died?"
(1857) Frederick Douglass, “If There Is No Struggle, There Is No Progress”
On August 3, 1857, Frederick Douglass delivered a “West India Emancipation” speech at Canandaigua, New York, on the twenty-third anniversary of the event. Most of the address was a history of British efforts toward emancipation as well as a reminder of the crucial role of the West Indian slaves in that own freedom struggle. However shortly after he began Douglass sounded a foretelling of the coming Civil War when he uttered two paragraphs that became the most quoted sentences of all of his public orations. They began with the words, “If there is no struggle, there is no progress.” These two paragraphs are the most famous and compelling
parts of that speech:
"Let me give you a word of the philosophy of reform. The whole history of the progress of human liberty shows that all concessions yet made to her august claims have been born of earnest struggle. The conflict has been exciting, agitating, all-absorbing, and for the time being, putting all other tumults to silence. It must do this or it does nothing. 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. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress. In the light of these ideas, Negroes will be hunted at the North and held and flogged at the South so long as they submit to those devilish outrages and make no resistance, either moral or physical. Men may not get all they pay for in this world, but they must certainly pay for all they get. If we ever get free from the oppressions and wrongs heaped upon us, we must pay for their removal. We must do this by labor, by suffering, by sacrifice, and if needs be, by our lives and the lives of others."
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. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress. In the light of these ideas, Negroes will be hunted at the North and held and flogged at the South so long as they submit to those devilish outrages and make no resistance, either moral or physical. Men may not get all they pay for in this world, but they must certainly pay for all they get. If we ever get free from the oppressions and wrongs heaped upon us, we must pay for their removal. We must do this by labor, by suffering, by sacrifice, and if needs be, by our lives and the lives of others."
The entire speech appears at: http://www.blackpast.org/?q=1857-frederick-douglass-if-there-no-str...
An appeal to the Ancestors:
A las Sietes Potencias de Africana Ellegua abra la Puerta por favor.
Trayvon, we will meet you at the Crossroads.
Winston Kennedy, March 2012
Comment
Comment by Edwin Boone on March 25, 2012 at 3:58pm- Delete CommentWhat is the difference between an armed neighborhood watch and vigilantes.......The tacit approval of rogue justice in the deep south where armed citizens have decided that their fears supersedes the rights of law abiding Black citizens to travel unchallenged in neighborhoods which have been claimed by white privilege.
Frederick Douglass lived in a time when Black people were obligated to prove their status as free people whenever challenged by white citizens under Fugitive Slave Laws, and today even with a Black President in the White House we are still labored with the burden of proof in almost every encounter with the protectors of white privilege. Are the words innocent until proven guilty reserved for a priviledged few? One fact remains certain, it always has, and that is dead men tell no tales.
In Trayvon's final hour he was stalked like a fugitive slave, challenged by an armed vigilante, unlawfully assaulted under color of authority which has been implied by the refusal of agents of the law to make a lawful arrest based on probable cause following Trayvon's death, and the failure to collect evidence at the scene following a homicide which would aid in prosecuting George Zimmerman.
The cards have been overwhelmingly stacked in Zimmerman's favor, and the presumption of innocents can no longer be equally shared by Trayvon or his family under the circumstances. He was wrongfully buried under a suspicion of guilt. The fact that Zimmerman remained free of any charges while Trayvon's body lay in the morgue, and later a funeral home, and finally in his grave can only be compared to a public lynching.
Some would say that we have come a long way from the days of lynching, but I wonder how Trayvon felt as he drew his last breath with Zimmerman standing over him armed with a gun, and a license to kill Black children still eating candy.
Comment by Karen Davis on March 25, 2012 at 2:06pm- Delete Comment
Whoa! knocks the breath out of me!
Comment
AALBC books worth reading...
The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson. This was an amazing, magnificent book chronicling the history of great numbers of Blacks who began leaving the south to seek a better life in the big cities of the North during the time period between 1915 through 1970.
Interested in having your book featured, join the Book Look group and for more on authors check out AALBC.
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