NORMALLY I DON’T CELEBRATE “DEATH DAYS,” BUT …: Frederick Douglass, the great abolitionist, orator and advisor to Presidents, was born a slave and never knew his exact birthday, so his death day is the only thing we have.  It was on this day in 1895.

Among his many insightful statements:

“No man can put a chain about the ankle of his fellow man without at last finding the other end fastened about his own neck.”

“Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground.”

“Everybody has asked the question, and they learned to ask it early of the abolitionists, ‘What shall we do with the Negro?’ I have had but one answer from the beginning. Do nothing with us! Your doing with us has already played the mischief with us.”

He was probably 77 when he died.