The claim, as it circulates · Checked 2026-10-20
“If there is no struggle there is no progress”: Frederick Douglass, in context
If there is no struggle there is no progress.”
Frederick Douglass, 1818–1895
SAID ITShort answer · Said itYes. Douglass said it in his “West India Emancipation” speech at Canandaigua, New York, on 3 August 1857. The original has no comma. A little later in the same speech he says “Power concedes nothing without a demand.”
The receipt: primary sourceNo. 002
The conflict has been exciting, agitating, all-absorbing, and for the time being, putting all other tumults to silence. It must do this or it does nothing. If there is no struggle there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters.
- Work
- “West India Emancipation” (speech)
- Date
- 3 August 1857
- Place
- Canandaigua, New York
- Source
- West India Emancipation — Wikisource ↗
- Checked
- 2026-10-20 · matched against the cached primary text
- You'll often see a comma added after “struggle.” Douglass's text doesn't have one.
- The speech marked the anniversary of emancipation in the British West Indies.
Cite-safe version
“If there is no struggle there is no progress.” — Frederick Douglass, “West India Emancipation,” Canandaigua, N.Y., 3 August 1857