William Wells Brown Quotes

13 Sourced Quotes

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.

William Wells Brown
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.

William Wells Brown
I was not only hunting for my liberty, but also hunting for my name.

William Wells Brown
I had long since made up my mind that I would not trust myself in the hands of any man, white or colored. The slave is brought up to look upon every white man as an enemy to him and his race; and twenty-one years in slavery had taught me that there were traitors, even among colored people.

William Wells Brown
The appearance of Clotel on the auction block created a deep sensation amongst the crowd. There she stood, with a complexion as white as most of those who were waiting with a wish to become her purchasers.

William Wells Brown
Why, every man must make equality for himself. No society, no government can make this equality. I do not expect the slave of the south to jump into equality; all I claim for him is, that he may be allowed to jump into liberty, and let him make equality for himself.

William Wells Brown
Known to God only is the amount of human agony and suffering which sends its cry from the slave markets and Negro pens, unheard and unheeded by man up to his ear; mothers weeping for their children, breaking the night-silence with the shrieks of their breaking hearts.

William Wells Brown
Society did not take me up; I took myself up. I did not ask society to take me up. All I asked of the white people was to get out of the way.

William Wells Brown
Despotism increases in severity with the number of despots; the responsibility is more divided, and the claims are more numerous.

William Wells Brown
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.

William Wells Brown
The last great struggle for our rights; the battle for our civilization, is entirely with ourselves.

William Wells Brown
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.

William Wells Brown
When this boy was brought to Dr. Young, his name being William, the same as mine, my mother was ordered to change mine to something else. This, at the time, I thought to be one of the most cruel acts that could be committed upon my rights.

William Wells Brown