Refrain:
Nothing has power like words on a page.
They can tear down an empire or launch a new age.
They can shatter a falsehood and unlock a cage.
Such is the strength of the words on a page.

There was a law, slaves must not learn to read.
If they knew letters, then they might rebel.
But Frederick Douglass discovered the seed.
Just who had taught him, he would never tell.

Frederick taught others, in spite of the law.
If he’d been caught, his fate would have been grim.
Through written words, new horizons they saw,
Though through the darkness the light still was dim.

Refrain

When he got free, Frederick authored a book
Telling the world how he’d lived as a slave.
Those who had never seen whips had to look
At the vile punishments slaveholders gave.

Lighting the North Star, he put into text
Visions of worlds where all people were free.
“Truth is of no color, Right has no sex.”
Words that would water the Liberty Tree.

Refrain

When war was raging, he wrote a reply
To those who asked, “If the slaves all go free,
What will we do with them?” He said, “You try
To do too much to us! Just let us be!”

Such was the force in the words from his pen,
Fighting injustice, defending the right,
That they brought freedom to women and men,
Showing the way under liberty’s light.

Refrain