A Heavy and Cruel Hand

"A heavy and cruel hand has been laid upon us.  As a people, we feel ourselves to be not only deeply injured, but grossly misunderstood.  Our white countrymen do not know us.  They are strangers to our character, ignorant of our capacity, oblivious to our history and progress, and misinformed as to the principles and ideas that control and guide us, as a people.  The great mass of American citizens estimates us as being characterless and purposeless people and hence we hold up our heads, if at all, against the withering influence of a nation's scorn and contempt." - Frederick Douglass