Frederick Douglass · Politics

Power Concedes Nothing Without a Demand

In a single famous passage from 1857, Douglass set down the iron law of political change: that the powerful never surrender anything to the powerless out of kindness, and that the only measure of how much injustice a people will suffer is how much they will quietly accept.

What you'll be able to recall

You learned Douglass’s law: that progress requires struggle. In your own words, why did he think the oppressed determine the exact amount of injustice done to them?

Leads to Mahatma Gandhi.

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