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Isabel Wilkerson

Isabel Wilkerson Quotes

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Famous Isabel Wilkerson Quotes

“The institution of slavery was, for a quarter millennium, the conversion of human beings into currency, into machines who existed solely for the profit of their owners, to be worked as long as the owners desired, who had no rights over their bodies or loved ones, who could be mortgaged, bred, won in a bet, given as wedding presents, bequeathed to heirs, sold away from spouses or children to cover an owner’s debt or to spite a rival or to settle an estate. They were regularly whipped, raped, and branded, subjected to any whim or distemper of the people who owned them. Some were castrated or endured other tortures too grisly for these pages, tortures that the Geneva Conventions would have banned as war crimes had the conventions applied to people of African descent on this soil. Before there was a United States of America, there was enslavement. Theirs was a living death passed down for twelve generations.”

BlackRacismSlaveryWhite SupremacyEnslavementCasteAmerican SlaverySlavery In America
Book:Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents
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“There were colored and white waiting rooms everywhere, from doctor's offices to the bus stations, as people may already know. But there were actually colored windows at the post office in, for example, Pensacola, Florida. And there were white and colored telephone booths in Oklahoma. And there were separate windows where white people and black people would go to get their license plates in Indianola, Mississippi. And there were even separate tellers to make your deposits at the First National Bank in Atlanta.”

PeopleKnowsFirstsMayWaitingBlackWhiteRoomsExampleOfficeWindowDoctorsPostsStationsBusBlack PeoplePlatesFloridaTelephonesLicenseMississippiAtlantaDepositsOklahomaPost OfficeWaiting RoomsLicense Plate
Author:Isabel Wilkerson
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