Source

What the Black Man Wants

Classification

primary

Type

speech

Date

1865?

Citation

Frederick Douglass, Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society , 1865

Rights

public-domain

A speech delivered by Frederick Douglass before the annual meeting of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society in Boston, arguing that formerly enslaved Black men must be granted the right to vote immediately and unconditionally, rather than eased into citizenship through gradual or paternalistic measures.

Delivered in the closing months of the Civil War, before Congress had taken up Reconstruction policy in earnest, the speech previewed the central political fight of the next several years: whether Black suffrage would be a condition of reunion. Douglass's closing appeal -- to "give him a chance to stand on his own legs" -- became one of the era's most frequently quoted lines. Secondary sources differ on the exact month of delivery in 1865; this record uses an EDTF uncertain-year marker ("1865?") pending confirmation against a critical edition.