Frederick Douglass

This being Black History Month I would like to talk about Frederick Douglass.

Here are the Frederick Douglass’ twelve principles to leadership and success:

1. The Proper Use of Power Is To Promote the Common Good.
2. Give Up Something You Want In Order To Help Someone Else.
3. Overcome Doubt and Fear.
4. Understand Why and How To Control the Human Ego.
5. Do What Is Right and Proper Even If No One Is Looking.
6. Use Knowledge and Understanding Wisely.
7. Overcome Indecisiveness.
8. Make Gratitude a Part of Every Thought And Action.
9. Practice the Skill of Listening Carefully Before Making Judgments.
10. Remain True To Your Word.
11. Hold a Vision For the Desired Future.
12. Recognize That Your Success Is As Much a Motivation To Others As To You.

Pretty good principles to live by. It sounds like he might be a conservative.

Here are some quotes of his:

People are asking me about the race problem.... I know of no race problem. The great problem that confronts the American people to-day is a national problem -- whether this great nation of ours is great enough to live up to its own convictions, carry out its own declaration of independence, and execute the provisions of its own constitution.

It's easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.

The life of the nation is secure only while the nation is honest, truthful, and virtuous.

People might not get all they work for in this world, but they must certainly work for all they get.

I recognize the Republican party as the sheet anchor of the colored man's political hopes and the ark of his safety.

I am a Republican, a black, dyed in the wool Republican, and I never intend to belong to any other party than the party of freedom and progress.

I prefer to be true to myself, even at the hazard of incurring the ridicule of others, rather than to be false, and to incur my own abhorrence.

Find out just what people will submit to, and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them; and these will continue until they are resisted with either words or blows, or both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.

….The American people have always been anxious to know what they shall do with us….I have had but one answer from the beginning. Do nothing with us! Your doing with us has already played mischief with us. Do nothing with us….And if the negro cannot stand on his own legs, let him fall also. All I ask is, give him a chance to stand on his own legs! Let him alone! ….[Y]our interference is doing him positive injury.

Yea, this guy was definitely a conservative. A better role model for blacks than Jessie Jackson or Al Sharpton will ever be.