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American History Quotes

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American History Quotes

“Resistance, as an American credo, blossomed from the seed-time of our American Revolution as a universal right, not simply some random act to “disrupt civil order and stability” or fleeting moments of dissent or vague calls for freedom, as often defined. Resistance, over the centuries, has endowed a “public commons” for “we the people” to have a voice in framing the defining issues in our most trying times. And while those defining issues have remained unresolved, in many respects— expanding the protection of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for all; defending the right of free speech and freedom of the press as inalienable—they have taken new forms in an age of nuclear weapons and climate change.”

ResistanceProtestAmerican HistoryDissentJeff Biggers
Book:Resistance: Reclaiming an American Tradition
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“Second, resistance defies claims of a single American way; and reminds us that there are many American ways, often conflicting and sometimes deceiving. This is particularly true of resistance movements themselves; splintered by nature, the small and vital acts of resistance, often those of a single person, have their own sources of inspiration. They follow a different timeline in everyone’s life. At their best, resistance movements flow like many rivers into an ocean or historic water- shed event.”

Social JusticeResistanceProtestAmerican HistoryDissentJeff Biggers
Book:Resistance: Reclaiming an American Tradition
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“At school, my science teacher talked about the ozone layer even as aerosol hairspray kept clouding the bathroom stalls. I tried to tell Mom about climate change, but she acted like I was gullible. If I was mad about losing our land, I was even angrier about what they'd done to it. While I still didn't know about the massacres, I knew enough to feel robbed. Manhatten was purchased with beads. Valuable furs had been traded for whiskey. White people used empty promises as tender, and in exchange, we Indians got blood quantum, our lineages tracked like thoroughbreds or dogs, destined to be turned into glue.”

American HistoryTruth TellingNative American LiteratureNative American History
Book:Whiskey Tender: A Memoir
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“In fact, just for the sake of understanding, if we measure the amount of blood and sweat that actually went into the making of America, we’d find that the contributions of the blacks far outweigh the contributions of the whites!”

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Book:Hometown Human: To Live for Soil and Society
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“I spent the day gathering flowers and weaving them into festoons, while the dead body of my father was lying within a mile of me. What cared my owners for that? he was merely a piece of property. Moreover, they thought he had spoiled his children, by teaching them to feel that they were human beings.”

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Book:Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Written by Herself
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“Although this may have been just another lie, his luck held out and two days later in the early hours of October 12, 1492, Juan Rodríguez Bermeo, the lookout on the Pinta, spotted a light and alerted the other ships by firing the signal cannon. Captain-General Juan de la Cosa, the owner of the Santa Maria, woke Columbus to notify him of this sighting. Rubbing his eyes, Columbus stated that he had seen the light a few hours earlier, thereby claiming in a rather unethical way, a lifetime pension for being the first man to sight land. When they went ashore later that day, Columbus named the island San Salvador. He mistakenly thought that he had arrived in the “Indies,” an early name for Asia, and thus named the indigenous natives “Indians.” Anthropologists believe that the first natives Columbus encountered on the island were Lucayan-Arawak Indians. In Columbus’ logbook, he noted that they had little knowledge of fighting and that they did not wear clothes. Apparently, they were exceptionally clean and washed themselves frequently. Although leery of Columbus and the scruffy newcomers with him, they were very polite and perhaps somewhat fearful of them. It was noted that the women stayed in the background and did most of the work around the village, whereas the men did the fishing. In contrast to these polite people, the members of Columbus’ crew were a rough and crass lot.”

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Book:Suppressed I Rise
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“The evangelicals won in the narrower competition for the loyalties of the minority of Americans who now identify with the Republican Party. Evangelicalism created a safe harbor for white people who wanted to be counted as Christians without having to accept what ecumenical leaders said were the social obligations demanded by the gospel, especially the imperative to extend civil equality to nonwhites. A popular theory of modern religious history holds that evangelical churches flourished because they made greater demands on the faithful, while liberal churches declined on account of not demanding much of anything. The opposite is true. Evangelicalism made it easy to avoid the challenges of an ethnoracially diverse society and a scientifically informed culture. Moreover, it is a mistake to suppose that evangelicalism has been hijacked by outsiders. Evangelical numbers swelled during the era of Donald Trump, but those who adopted an evangelical identity anew had good reason to do so. What they were joining was easily recognized”

ChristianityAmerican HistoryDonald TrumpReligious HistoryEvangelicalism
Book:Christianity's American Fate: How Religion Became More Conservative and Society More Secular
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“There is a notion out there that black people enjoy the Sisyphean struggle against racism. In fact, most of us live for the day when we can struggle against anything else. But having been, by that very racism, pinned into ghettoes, both metaphorical and real, our options for struggle are chosen long before we are born. And so we struggle out of fear for our children. We struggle out of fear for ourselves. We struggle to avoid our feelings, because to actually consider all that was taken, to understand that it was taken systematically, that the taking is essential to America and echoes down through the ages, could make you crazy.”

American HistoryAfrican AmericansSystematic RacismStruggle Against Racism
Book:We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy
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“During the American Revolution, the British offered emancipation to any enslaved person who fought on their side. This military tactic infuriated the Patriots and caused pandemonium on the southern plantations as thousands of slaves escaped and joined the British Army or sought refuge behind enemy lines.”

American HistoryBlack HistoryAmerican RevolutionColonial AmericaAmerican Revolutionary War
Book:Discovering Black America: From the Age of Exploration to the Twenty-First Century
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“Being a spy during the american revolution was arole that a black person was well suited for. as the "invisible race" it was easy for blacks to gain access to information that would help either the Patriots or the Loyalists, because many on both sides did not believe that a black person had the cunning or intellect to be a spy. Black housekeepers, servants, cooks, and maids were often present when valuable information about troop positions, troop movements, and artillery and supply routes were discussed.”

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Author:Linda Tarrant-Reid
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“The first newspapers written, edited, and published by African Americans appeared in the northern United States and Canada beginning in the early 1800s. They focused primarily on issues that were important to the black community, including the abolition of slavery and the rights of free blacks. Samuel E. Cornish and John B. Russwurm published the first black-owned and operated newspaper in America for African Americans. Freedom's Journal covered international, national, and regional news and provided its readership with useful information.”

American HistoryBlack HistoryAmerican RevolutionAmerican Revolutionary War
Book:Discovering Black America: From the Age of Exploration to the Twenty-First Century
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“Takekuma Norman Takei (George Takei's father): America is a strange country... Despite everything, it's still a nation of ideals. Yes, justice here is neither blind nor fair. It only reflects the society. But this is an open society where people who want to can become a part of it. The system here is called participatory democracy, where the important thing is to participate. If people like me aren't willing to take a chance and participate, America stays that much farther from its ideals. My choice is to be in there with good people like Wayne Collins, the lawyer who is helping Mama with her legal battle. My choice is to help America be what it claims it is.”

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Book:To the Stars
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“While under the Spanish flag, the Crown rigorously controlled the number of slaves allowed into Cuba and charged the settlers a 20% royalty for each slave they imported. In 1537, Havana was invaded and briefly occupied by the French. On April 6, 1538, Hernando de Soto with about 950 men and horses on ten ships sailed from Sanlúcar de Barrameda, Spain to Santiago de Cuba where he took over as the Governor of Cuba. From Santiago, he sailed around Cuba to Havana with a nine-ship convoy and set up a base which was administered by his wife and used as a stepping-stone to Florida. Anticipating this expedition, he sent Juan de Añasco with two ships to find a suitable landing site along the west coast of Florida. Añasco, who was Hernando de Soto’s scout, returned with four Indians who told fabricated stories about gold in Florida, which De Soto accepted as true. After some months preparing for the expedition, De Soto left Cuba and arrived at Shaw’s Point near present-day Bradenton, Florida, where he started his long trek in search of gold and silver.”

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Author:Captain Hank Bracker, The Exciting Story of Cuba
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“The white woman across the aisle from me says 'Look, look at all the history, that house on the hill there is over two hundred years old, ' as she points out the window past me into what she has been taught. I have learned little more about American history during my few days back East than what I expected and far less of what we should all know of the tribal stories whose architecture is 15,000 years older than the corners of the house that sits museumed on the hill. 'Walden Pond, ' the woman on the train asks, 'Did you see Walden Pond? ' and I don't have a cruel enough heart to break her own by telling her there are five Walden Ponds on my little reservation out West and at least a hundred more surrounding Spokane, the city I pretended to call my home. 'Listen, ' I could have told her. 'I don't give a shit about Walden. I know the Indians were living stories around that pond before Walden's grandparents were born and before his grandparents' grandparents were born. I'm tired of hearing about Don-fucking-Henley saving it, too, because that's redundant. If Don Henley's brothers and sisters and mothers and father hadn't come here in the first place then nothing would need to be saved.' But I didn't say a word to the woman about Walden Pond because she smiled so much and seemed delighted that I thought to bring her an orange juice back from the food car. I respect elders of every color. All I really did was eat my tasteless sandwich, drink my Diet Pepsi and nod my head whenever the woman pointed out another little piece of her country's history while I, as all Indians have done since this war began, made plans for what I would do and say the next time somebody from the enemy thought I was one of their own.”

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Author:Sherman Alexie
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“Naskar's Folly (The Sonnet) If your perception doesn't evolve with time, It's not a sign of conviction but cowardice. So in this sonnet I take it upon myself, to correct my own early follies. In one of my early works I called America, "a great country, built by great people," while the harsh humanitarian fact of earth is, America is a terrorist nation, built by criminals. I once naively asked to 'appreciate the soldiers', while unintentionally undermining peace-activism. That one line has been eating me alive, until in 2023 I declared, "military is legal terrorism." Own up your follies, use them to sharpen your conviction. Mistakes acknowledged are the beginning of illumination.”

PerceptionConvictionMistakesAmerican HistoryGrowth Mindset4th Of JulyPeace ActivistDemilitarizationSelf CorrectionFourth Of July
Book:World War Human: 100 New Earthling Sonnets
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“You're a Black educated fool, son. These white folk have newspapers, magazines, radios, spokesmen to get their ideas across. If they want to tell the world a lie, they can tell it so well that it becomes the truth; and if I tell them you're lying, they'll tell the world even if you prove you're telling the truth. Because it's the kind of lie they want to hear.”

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Author:Ralph Ellison
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“Black churches viewed education and litercay as paramount to the success of the African American community...."the vast majorities of HBCUs were founded to be seminaries and divinity schools...schools in church basements evolved into HBCUs: Morehouse College arose from the basement of Springfield Baptist Church in Augusta Georgia; Selman College, from the basement of Friendship Baptist Church in Atlanta; and Tuskegee Institute, out of a room near the local AME Zion church.”

LoveGodHateChurchFateAmerican HistoryBlack History
Book:The Black Church: This Is Our Story, This Is Our Song
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“Stories of Ayuba's Muslim religious practices - running away to find private spaces in which to say his daily prayers - led to his imprisonment. During his captivity, Ayuba wrote a letter in Arabic to his father in Africa, explaining the desperation of his situation and pleading for help. The letter made its way into the hands of James Oglethorpe, the founder of Georgia, which began as an antislavery colony.”

LoveGodHateChurchFateAmerican HistoryBlack History
Book:The Black Church: This Is Our Story, This Is Our Song
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“Virginia even passed a law in 1667 stating that 'the Conferrin of Baptisme doth not allow that Condition of the slave as to his Bondage or freedome," Thus, when Anglican missionaries arrived in Britain's New World colonies in the 1670s with the intent to convert those enslaved on plantations, they faced opposition and even violence from white colonists who wanted to keep Christianity exclusive to free white people.”

LoveGodHateChurchFateAmerican HistoryBlack History
Book:Christian Slavery: Conversion and Race in the Protestant Atlantic World
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“Anglican missionaries therefore had to articulate a vision of Christianity that brought religion to enslaved men and women while at the same time placating their owners. The centered it on race rather than religion...Missionaries sought to convince planters that Christianity would not foment rebellion. Instead, it would make the enslaved docile, hardworking, and easier to manage.”

LoveGodHateChurchFateAmerican HistoryBlack History
Book:Christian Slavery: Conversion and Race in the Protestant Atlantic World
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“The American dream was wrought in the fire of the passionate hearts and minds of America’s radicals. It could never have been conceived in the cold, clammy tomb of conservativism. The American radical descends from those who begot, nurtured, fought, and suffered for every idea that moved men’s feet forward in the march of civilization — the radicals of the world. The hopes and aspirations of the radicals of the world found fruit in the American Revolution. Here in the New World man would find the new life, the new order; even our money carried this message, NOVUS ORDO SECLORUM. The history of America is the story of America’s radicals. It is a saga of revolution, battle, words on paper setting hearts on fire, ferment and turmoil; it is the story of every rallying cry of the American people. It is the story of the American Revolution, of the public schools, of the battle for free land, of emancipation, of the unceasing struggle for the ever increasing liberation of mankind.”

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Book:Reveille for Radicals
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“Eleanor Roosevelt's stand on civil rights, her insistence that America could not fight racism abroad while tolerating it at home, remains one of the affirming moments in the history of the home front during the war.”

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Book:No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II
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“That free time is one of the biggest barriers to activism was, in a way, proven in the summer of 2020, as the protests over George Floyd and the slew of other Black lives lost became the most attended protests in American history. Up to twenty-six million Americans participated, a number that would be unthinkable were it not for the converging COVID-19 epidemic and the unprecedented amount of free time that accompanied it.”

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Book:It Was Vulgar and It Was Beautiful: How AIDS Activists Used Art to Fight a Pandemic
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“It is important for upcoming activists to study American history, as well as political and philosophical thought. It is unlikely that what you hope to accomplish is new. Current activism is almost always linked to the history of revolution worldwide, and Americans have a special connection to this legacy because our nation was born out of the struggle against tyranny.”

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Book:Across That Bridge: A Vision for Change and the Future of America
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“Each of us lives with a sword over his head. There are those who can ignore its shadow and those who cannot. Those who cannot are not necessarily better than those who can. But they are the creators of the special myth of their time, because any myth is the creation of the very few who cannot bear reality.”

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Book:Part of Our Time: Some Ruins & Monuments of the Thirties
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“The honest and serious student of American history will recall that our Founding Fathers managed to write both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution without using the term 'democracy' even once. No part of any of the existing state Constitutions contains any reference to the word. [The men] who were most influential in the institution and formulation of our government refer to 'democracy' only to distinguish it sharply from the republican form of our American Constitutional system.”

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Author:Clarence Manion
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“History teaches us no race, no people, no nation has ever been freed through cowardice, through cringing, through bowing and scraping, but all that has been achieved to the glory of mankind, to the glory and honour of races and nations was through the manly determination and effort of those who lead and those who are led.”

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Book:The Marcus Garvey and Universal Negro Improvement Association Papers, Vol. II: August 1919-August 1920
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“This Congress did more to uplift education, more to attack disease in this country and around the world, and more to conquer poverty than any other session in all American history, and what more worthy achievements could any person want to have? For it was the Congress that was more true than any other Congress to Thomas Jefferson's belief that: 'The care of human life and happiness is the first and only legitimate objective of good Government.'”

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Author:Lyndon B. Johnson
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