Frederick Douglass as a founding father...

"For the present, it is enough to affirm the equal manhood of the Negro race. Is it not astonishing that, while we are ploughing, planting, and reaping, using all kinds of mechanical tools, erecting houses, constructing bridges, building ships, working in metals of brass, iron, copper, silver and gold; that, while we are reading, writing and ciphering, acting as clerks, merchants and secretaries, having among us lawyers, doctors, ministers, poets, authors, editors, orators and teachers; that, while we are engaged in all manner of enterprises common to other men, digging god in California, capturing the whale in the Pacific, feeding sheep and cattle on the hill-side, living, moving, acting, thinking, planning, living in families as husbands, wives and children, and, above all, confessing and worshipping the Christian's God, and looking hopefully for life and immortality beyond the grave, we are called upon to prove that we are men!" -Frederick Douglass (The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro).

I freaking love reading this dude's speeches. My mind works in comic book, so I am just seeing the tension and courage it would take in his context to stand up and speak like this. If there are any admirable and inspiring qualities to be found in the founding fathers, surely they were equally present in men like Douglass.

-joshua (2018).