“I wanted to devour this woman's dignity. Congratulations for what exactly? For having a family who made it through genocide? For being part of the slim population of surviving Native Americans post-colonization? An anger simmered in my throat, begging to be let loose on this stupid woman who was there to simply enjoy her vacation. How dare she remain blissfully unaware of the modern existence of Native Americans when all she had seen were movies making us look like history? As mad as I was, I knew it wasn't her fault and I couldn't muster up the energy to boil my anger into a response.”
Source: Thinning Blood: A Memoir of Family, Myth, and Identity
“When you smile wide, you provide hope and joy to those by your side.”
“The struggle is long. We’re going up against a vicious system. Each act of resistance shakes and weakens the structures of oppression. But most times, those acts of resistance aren’t enough to bring the entire structure down.”
Source: Black Coal and Red Bandanas: An Illustrated History of the West Virginia Mine Wars
“History is not a bedtime story. It is a comprehensive engagement with often obscure documents and books no longer read—books shelved in old archives, and fragile pamphlets contemporaneous with the subject under study—all of which reflect a world view not ours.”
Source: Fallen Founder: The Life of Aaron Burr
“Reconciling empire and liberty - based on the violent taking of Indigenous lands - into a usable myth allowed for the emergence of an enduring populist imperialism. Wars of conquest and ethnic cleansing could be sold to "the people" - indeed could be fought for by the young men of those very people - by promising to expand economic opportunity, democracy, and freedom for all.”
Source: An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States
“The original settlers of Massachusetts Bay Colony, founded in 1630, adopted an official seal designed in England before their journey. The central image depicts a near-naked native holding a harmless, flimsy-looking bow and arrow and inscribed with the plea, "Come over and help us." Nearly three hundred years later, the official seal of the US military veterans of the "Spanish-American War" (the invasion and occupation of Puerto Rico, Cuba, and the Philippines) showed a naked woman kneeling before an armed US soldier and a sailor, with a US battleship in the background. One may trace this recurrent altruistic theme into the early twenty-first century, when the United States still invades countries under the guise of rescue.”
Source: An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States
“When men carry the same ideals in their hearts, nothing can keep them isolated: neither walls of prisons nor the sod of cemeteries. For a single memory, a single spirit, a single idea, a single conscience, a single dignity, will sustain them all.”
Source: The Declarations of Havana
“...the Anti-Imperialist League...carried on a long campaign to educate the American public about the horrors of the Philippine war and the evils of imperialism. It was...united in a common moral outrage at what was being done to the Filipinos in the name of freedom. Whatever their differences on other matters, they would all agree with William James's angry statement: 'God damn the U.S. for its vile conduct in the Philippine Isles'.”
Source: A People’s History of the United States: 1492 - Present
“As late as November 9, 1963, Texas saw the enormous value of the poll tax and voted to maintain this tool of disfranchisement because "removing the poll tax requirement...would 'allow' minorities to 'flood the polls.”
Source: One Person, No Vote: How Voter Suppression Is Destroying Our Democracy
“What the states could not accomplish by law, they were more than willing to achieve by violence. The wholesale slaughter of African Americans in Colfax, Louisiana (1873), Wilmington, North Carolina (1898), and Ocoee, Florida (1920), resulted in the loss of hundreds of lives simply because whites were enraged that black people had voted.”
Source: One Person, No Vote: How Voter Suppression Is Destroying Our Democracy