This book is a collection of biographical sketches and poems about people of color. The sketches provide insight into the lives of notable African Americans, including Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth, and Phillis Wheatley. The poems celebrate the achievements of these individuals and provide a glimpse into the challenges they faced. This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

THE object of this selection is not to set forth the exploits of the warrior, who has drenched fields i blood, destroyed cities by fire, and their inhabitants by famine, who has made the mother a widow, and her children fatherless; and deprived the aged of their comfort and support in declining life. It is not to rehearse the harangues, nor to set forth the eloquence of the man of science; but to encourage virtue and morality in the different classes of society; and by bringing into view the effects which a system of slavery has on the human mind, and the dreadful consequences of that arbitrary power invested in the slave-holder over his fellow being; to show how it hardens the heart and petrifies the feelings. No doubt there are some men who in early life, and before they were placed in authority, like Hazael, would have been shocked to hear predicted what they have afterwards, and under different circumstances, put in practice; but there are others, who, being trained up in the midst of Slavery, are inured from their infancy to see the sufferings of the poor slaves, and to hear their cries, become almost insensible to the responsibility of their station, and the enormity of the evils they are committing. For these, as well as for the slaves, our tenderest sympathy ought to be awakened, and our aspirations to ascend before Him who can unstop the deaf ear, and open the eyes even of those who are blind.