Frederick Douglass Thematic Question

Frederick Douglass was born into slavery in the year 1818 in Maryland. He was a slave for many years. His mother had been African American and a slave her entire life and his father was her master and a white man. He worked as a slave until in his later life he escaped and was freed.
Douglass wrote an autobiography called The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave. His book was published in 1845. Even in the 19th century it was still facing controversy. For every white man the reveled in slavery there were at least two African American men that suffered on account of it. Slavery was a terrible thing.
The very idea that something so terrible could occur for so long in the land of the "free" is really sickening. But the slaves had no voice in the matter and the white men and women were fine with the matter at hand and the few that were not knew better than to tackle such a subject. To so much as teach a slave to read was a punishable offense.
Slavery was a long time in the making and it took a large effort to end it. Frederick Douglass was just one of the many men and women that contributed to the movement. Even in the 21st century racism is still present. You will not find it in the great masses that it could be found in during the 19th century but certainly it still exists.
The very idea that someone should be punished because they have a different colored skin pigment is barbaric. It is difficult to even fathom such a heinous crime today in a world where everything is turning liberal. Frederick Douglass was a brave man to stand up against such an evil as he did.
It takes a really awful person to punish a person for skin color so for a nation to punish and entire race for it is just demented. Those that are not feeling the bite of the whip were more than eager for such terrible things to continue occurring because they received a feeling of superiority. A mans wealth could be determined just by looking at the number of slaves that he owned so no wealthy man was going to be willing to fall easily. The thought of paying field hands enough to equal out to the cost of living was simply unbearable.
America was a sick and heavy burdened nation with the weight of slavery within its midst. It was not until it was cleansed of slavery that America could begin to heal. The marks of slavery will always be present within the nation because such hatred leaves scars that even time cannot properly heal.
It really must have been a world filled with hatred for something so terrible to have survived for so long. Douglass' story does go to show that just a few decent hearts in a world full of hatred can make all of the difference. It was due to those who refused to back down that we owe this age of equal opportunity to.