Catherine Ellis

“For early American blacks, bound in service to a land that claimed to be freedom-loving, public speaking was more than an important social instrument: it was a practical weapon against the power of slavery that sought to be all-controlling, a means to psychological and emotional survival, and a vehicle for maintaining personal dignity and self-respect. It was a means of resisting slavery’s intent to reduce its victims to the level of subhuman property taking value solely from a master’s appraisal”
― Catherine Ellis, Say It Plain: A Century of Great African American Speeches