"It is our lot to live among a people whose laws, traditions, and prejudices have been against us for centuries, and from these they are not yet free. To assume that they are free from these evils simply because they have changed their laws is to assume what is utterly unreasonable and contrary to facts. Large bodies move slowly. Individuals may be converted on the instant and change their whole course of life. Nations never. Time and events are required for the conversion of nations." – Frederick Douglass, address at the National Convention of Colored Men at Louisville, Kentucky, September 24, 1883
(Douglass’ address was a prescient warning about the erosion of African-American rights in the post-Reconstruction era, particularly as it related to the Supreme Court. His address remains, to this day, remarkably insightful and sober about the need to change a culture and attitudes as much as laws. To be effective, one transformation cannot successfully take hold without the others.)
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