“One company stayed on without pay. The men, contrabands from Georgia, went to Saint Simons Island to help garrison the island. Proud to be the last soldiers in Hunter's regiment, they hunted invading rebels in dense palmetto thickets.”
Source: Gullah Days: Hilton Head Islanders Before the Bridge 1861-1956
“Blue wasn’t the sort of girl to hand out false compliments, even to her mother. Although she was kind, she wasn’t nice.”
Source: Blue Lily, Lily Blue
“Having voted for independence, they now needed to discuss and vote on the text of a declaration of independence that Thomas Jefferson had drawn up. The text Jefferson had written was read aloud, and throughout the day the delegates made changes. They deleted about twenty-five percent of the text, thinking it not applicable, or too emotive, or beside the point.”
Source: John Adams: Independence Forever
“In 1890...the Magnolia State passed the Mississippi Plan, a dizzying array of poll taxes, literacy tests, understanding clauses, newfangled voter registration rules, and "good character" clauses—all intentionally racially discriminatory but dressed up in the genteel garb of bringing "integrity" to the voting booth.”
Source: One Person, No Vote: How Voter Suppression Is Destroying Our Democracy
“One delegate questioned him: "Will it not be done by fraud and discrimination?"
"By fraud, no. By discrimination, yes," Glass retorted.”
Source: One Person, No Vote: How Voter Suppression Is Destroying Our Democracy
“Bilbo was pointing to the power of the literacy test and understanding clause, which were tailor-made for societies that systematically refused to educate millions of their citizens and ensured that the bulk of the population remained functionally illiterate...for most of the twentieth century, many Jim Crow school systems did not have high schools for African Americans.”
Source: One Person, No Vote: How Voter Suppression Is Destroying Our Democracy
“There was virtually no aspect of twentieth-century defense technology that had not been touched by the hands and minds of female mathematicians.”
Source: Hidden Figures
“O, you happy free women, contrast your New Year's day with that of the poor bond-woman! With you it is a pleasant season, and the light of the day is blessed.”
Source: Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Written by Herself
“When the mother was delivered into the trader's hands, she said, "You promised to treat me well." To which he replied, "You have let your tongue run too far; damn you!" She had forgotten that it was a crime to tell who was the father of her child.”
Source: Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Written by Herself
“Segregation laws were proposed as part of a deliberate effort to drive a wedge between poor whites and African Americans. These discriminatory barriers were designed to encourage lower-class whites to retain a sense of superiority over blacks, making it far less likely that they would sustain interracial political alliances aimed at toppling the white elite.”
Source: The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness