The oppressors will never relinquish power!

During his famous 3 August 1857 address on ‘West India Emancipation’ in Canandaigua, New York, abolitionist, orator and author Frederick Douglass (1818-95) emphasised that we must obtain systemic change through collective organisation. Douglass noted that both moral and physical dilemmas require struggle and ‘if there is no struggle, there is no progress’.

In this week’s Wednesday Wisdom, his words reiterate that as long as the oppressed ‘hug their chains,’ the oppressors will never relinquish power. Douglass echoes the sentiments of many of our predecessors that we, as Africans, will only gain our freedom when our collective demand for liberation becomes too powerful to be ignored by those who wield power.