Do not ask me to write with compromise. I will be as harsh as truth and as uncompromising as justice. I will not think, speak or write mildly. No. Tell the man whose house is on fire to alert others gently; tell him to rescue his wife mildly from the one who is taking her by force from their home; or tell a mother to lift her child gently from the fire into which the child has fallen. Then do not tell me, in the circumstances before us, to speak softly. I have risen in earnest. I will not stammer. I will apologise to no one, and I will not retreat a single step, and I assure you that I will be heard.

An excerpt from the first editorial of The Liberator
On the anniversary of the death of
William Garrison
Founder of the social movement for the abolition of slavery in the United States