Born a Slave

Frederick Douglass — abolitionist, eloquent orator, writer, editor,

and women’s rights advocate — was born a slave in Maryland in February 1817 or 1818.   

I assert most unhesitatingly that the religion of the South is a mere covering for the most horrid crimes – a justifier of the most appalling barbarity, a sanctifier of the most hateful frauds, and a dark shelter under which the darkest, foulest, grossest, and most infernal deeds of slaveholders find the strongest protection.  Were I to be again reduced to the chains of slavery, next to that enslavement, I should regard being the slave of a religious master the greatest calamity that could befall me.  I hate the corrupt, slaveholding, women-whipping, cradle-plundering, partial and hypocritical Christianity of this land.   - Frederick Douglass

He is a lover of his country who rebukes and does not excuse its sins. - Frederick Douglass

Douglas addressed the white community:

Slavery fetters your progress, it is the enemy of improvement; the deadly foe of education; it fosters pride; it breeds indolence; it promotes vice; it shelters crime; it is a curse of the earth that supports it, and yet you cling to it as if it were the sheet anchor of all your hopes.

“Slavery is of God” they used to say in the Antebellum South  - source

Douglass was outspoken in opposition to the policy of extermination of Native Americans.  And, in 1848, at the Seneca Falls Convention, when Elizabeth Cady Stanton had the nerve to call for an effort to secure the vote of women, he was the only man of any ethnic group to stand in support.  - source

Charles Carroll’s The Negro a Beast (St. Louis:  American Book and Bible House) taught its pious readers that “the Bible and Divine Revelation, as well as reason, all teach that the Negro is not human.”

a few verses in the Bible on slavery

When a man strikes his male or female slave with a rod so hard that the slave dies under his hand, he shall be punished.  If, however, the slave survives for a day or two, he is not to be punished, since the slave is his own property.  (Exodus 21:20-21 NAB) 

 Slaves, obey your earthly masters with deep respect and fear.  Serve them sincerely as you would serve Christ.  (Ephesians 6:5 NLT) 

All who are under the yoke of slavery should consider their masters worthy of full respect, so that God’s name and our teaching may not be slandered. Those who have believing masters should not show them disrespect just because they are fellow believers. Instead, they should serve them even better because their masters are dear to them as fellow believers and are devoted to the welfareof their slaves.  (1 Timothy 6:1-2 NIV)