Quotessence
Home / Topics / Slavery In The United States Quotes

Slavery In The United States Quotes

Browse 67 quotes about Slavery In The United States.

Slavery In The United States Quotes

“It was a grand opportunity for the low whites, who had no negroes of their own to scourge. They exulted in such a chance to exercise a little brief authority, and show their subserviency to the slaveholders; not reflecting that the power which trampled on the colored people also kept themselves in poverty, ignorance and moral degradation.”

“Heroes deal out vengeance, wiping out insults, and in an existential sense denying their own death. In twentieth-century camps, however, Todorov found, some people instead found transcendence by displaying kindness toward other people. Through small, everyday acts that committed them to the survival of other human beings--even at the cost of lowering their own chances--they demonstrated their own commitment to an abstract yet personal value. Although heroic acts were as suicidal in twentieth-century death camps as they were in nineteenth-century slave labor camps, even in hell there was still room to be a moral human being.”

“The silver trump of freedom had roused my soul to eternal wakefulness. Freedom now appeared, to disappear no more forever. It was heard in every sound, and seen in every thing. It was ever present to torment me with a sense of my wretched condition. I saw nothing without seeing it, I heard nothing without hearing it, and felt nothing without feeling it. It looked from every star, it smiled in every, calm, breathed in every wind, and moved in every storm.”

“Happy belated 4th of July to the Americans July 2, 1776, was meant for. Not the American's; some of whom's ancestors fought for the British against a nation that DIDN'T then, COULDN'T after The Emancipation Proclamation, and still CAN'T seem to recognize our basic human rights.”

“Taxes also paid for countless projects that kept humans enslaved. Meaning, humans slaved away all day for wages so they could lose their money to taxes and fees that paid for projects that were aimed at keeping humans even more enslaved than they currently were. Humans were paying their masters to enslave them.”

“Added to the shock of the routine violation of their bodies was the trauma of having to relinquish their children to unknown slave-holders. [W.E.B.] Du Bois considered this physical, mental, and spiritual abuse of black women--with its inevitable result being the destruction of the traditional African family--the highest crime committed by slave-holders and the one thing for which he said he could not forgive them.”

“Moral stains are wiped clean with the passing of the transgressor. They do not pass down to their descendants or others of the same faith or ethnicity through osmosis. Those using the very notion of inherited guilt as a stick to beat others with are revealing more about their problematic natures than anyone bearing their accusations.”

“They took it for more than it was, or anyhow for more than it said; the container was greater than the thing contained, and Lincoln became at once what he would remain for them, “the man who freed the slaves.” He would go down to posterity, not primarily as the Preserver of the Republic-which he was-but as the Great Emancipator, which he was not.”

“The mythology serves purposes darker than sentiment, nothing more so than the currently popular, and arrantly nonsensical, assertion that Lee freed his inherited slaves in 1862 before the war was over, while Grant kept his until the Thirteenth Amendment freed them in 1865. The subtext is transparent. If Southerner Lee freed his slaves while Northerner Grant kept his, then secession and the war that followed can hardly have had anything to do with slavery and must instead have been over the tariff or state rights, or some other handy pretext invented to cloak slavery’s pivotal role.”

“You know that there are no black people in Africa,” she said. Most Americans, we have to sit with that statement. It sounds nonsensical to our ears. Of course there are black people in Africa. There is a whole continent of black people in Africa. How could anyone not see that? “Africans are not black,” she said. “They are Igbo and Yoruba, Ewe, Akan, Ndebele. They are not black. They are just themselves. They are humans on the land. That is how they see themselves, and that is who they are.” What we take as gospel in American culture is alien to them, she said. “They don’t become black until they go to America or come to the U.K.,” she said. “It is then that they become black.”

“One cannot escape the question by hand-waving at the past, disavowing the acts of one's ancestors, nor by citing a recent date of ancestral immigration. The last slave holder has been dead for a very long time. The last soldier to endure Valley Forge has been dead much longer. To proudly claim the veteran and disown the slave holder is patriotism á la carte.”

“Here in the United States, very little effort has been made to voice formal apologies, make reparations, or pass political mandates about education. Yet this country was founded in part by genocidal policies directed at Native Americans and the enslavement of Black people. Both of these things are morally repugnant. Still I love my country. In fact, it is because I love my country that I want to make sure the mistakes of our past do not get repeated. We cannot afford to cover over the dark chapters of our history, as we have for decades upon decades. It is time for that to stop.”

“Slavery was more or less brought to an end in America, although not as quickly or apologetically as it should have been, and even after slavery ended, the descendants of slaves have been treated very terribly by many people in places with much hatred and violence, which, like slavery, may someday come to an end, although not as quickly or apologetically as any decent person would like.”

“The ship was bound for the Carolinas; and you must not suppose that I was going to that place merely as an exile. The trade was even then much depressed; since that, and with the rebellion of the colonies and the formation of the United States, it has, of course, come to an end; but in those days of my youth, white men were still sold into slavery on the plantations, and that was the destiny to which my wicked uncle had condemned me.”

“In some [Southern States] the Union sentiment was so strong that it had to be suppressed by force. Maryland, Delaware, Kentucky and Missouri, all Slave States, failed to pass ordinances of secession; but they were all represented in the so-called congress of the so-called Confederate States. The Governor and Lieutenant-Governor of Missouri, in 1861, Jackson and Reynolds, were both supporters of the rebellion and took refuge with the enemy. The governor soon died, and the lieutenant-governor assumed his office; issued proclamations as governor of the State; was recognized as such by the Confederate Government, and continued his pretensions until the collapse of the rebellion. The South claimed the sovereignty of States, but claimed the right to coerce into their confederation such States as they wanted, that is, all the States where slavery existed. They did not seem to think this course inconsistent. The fact is, the Southern slave-owners believed that, in some way, the ownership of slaves conferred a sort of patent of nobility—a right to govern independent of the interest or wishes of those who did not hold such property. They convinced themselves, first, of the divine origin of the institution and, next, that that particular institution was not safe in the hands of any body of legislators but themselves.”

“Ermias Davidson Asghedom (Nipsey Hussle) provided the blueprint for future rappers - talented lyricists - destined for the industry. On top of showing them how to think beyond Hip Hop, he also showed them how to combat Mumble Rap - a weapon designed by the opposition to our covert empowerment movement, which has been underway, through song, since slavery of which America, herself, has yet to atone for.”

“Similarly, the nation’s top wealth holders in 1860 had tended to be its major slaveholders. In total, the United States in 1860 had about four million slaves, and on the open market they were worth at least three billion dollars. That was roughly three times the amount of capital invested in manufacturing, three times the amount invested in railroads, seven times the amount invested in banks, and forty-eight times the amount the federal government spent that year. Only the nation’s real estate was more valuable.”

“Critical Race Theory hinges on the dubious assertion that the economic success of the United States is resulted from the free labor provided by the slave population during its founding. This assertion ignores the fact that 94% of all slaves brought to the Americas went to nations south of the border, which, by and large have remained ‘Third World’ economies. Thus, it begs to question: If a slave population is the precursor to economic success, then why did the nations that absorbed 94% of the slave population remain impoverished and underdeveloped economies into the 21st Century? Clearly, slavery did very little to boost their chances at economic stability, much less success.”

“… the English colonies in North America accounted for only a tiny fraction of the hideous traffic in human beings. David Brion Davis, in his magisterial 2006 history Inhuman Bondage: The Rise and Fall of Slavery in the New World, concludes that colonial North America ‘surprisingly received only 5 to 6 percent of the African slaves shipped across the Atlantic.’ Hugh Thomas in The Slave Trade calculates the percentage as slightly lower, at 4.4 percent.”

“All I want to do is reunite my family. Free them from bondage. But each time I do, another family is left in pieces. But my brothers would've been sold away if I hadn't come. Forever lost like our sisters. But I've never gone on a mission without the good Lord's consent. This is where I'm supposed to be. It hurts, yes, it does, but the Lord has shown me the way. And it led me back here to my brothers.”

“Leavin' is hard. Nothin' else in Heaven or on Earth would've made me leave Mary and my boys. I got a little girl now, too. She's another Harriet in the family. It's a special name. But nobody wears it better than you. You're a charm from above. Thank you for comin' back for us.”

“Unlike the poor English, Irish, and native indentured servants, the African imports and their children were now considered property.... By creating a legally binding, race-based, intergenerational, perpetually oppressed class of human beings, Virginia revealed that all that nonsense in the colony's first charter about God, liberty, and the "true religion" was a farce. Slavery was an American idea, not a product of the time. No law was passed in England that legalized slavery. France's Code noir was similar, but it would come about two decades after Virginia's declaration. From its inception, America was always a pyramid scheme where the wealthy benefited from the labor of the poor.”

“The only reason Kate had run afoul of the law was because she had shot a white man. The rules were different for them. They could shoot and kill almost anyone and suffer little to no consequences. Yet, if a black, Hispanic, Indian or anyone not white harmed them all the weight of the white judicial system came tumbling down on the heads of those criminals.” Excerpt From Peace Quiet and a Little Justice in the Territories Mark T. Sneed This material may be protected by copyright.”

“The old woman crossed over to her. "When I speak of the people," she said barely above a whisper, her voice all weariness and grief, "I ain't just talking about the flesh, the blood. It's their voices. Their yes's and no's. That's what holds muscle to bone. The biggest thing the white man takes from us ain't our bodies. He takes our voices, too. He swallows up our yes's and no's like biscuits. But one day our yes's and no's will be so loud and strong they will lodge in his throat. He will have to spit them out to keep from choking. He will starve. There won't be nothing left of him except the shadows he casts on the deadest night.”

“Several years after, he passed through our town and preached to his former congregation. In his afternoon sermon he addressed the colored people. 'My friends,' said he, 'it affords me great happiness to have an opportunity of speaking to you again. For two years I have been striving to do something for the colored people of my own parish; but nothing is yet accomplished. I have not even preached a sermon to them. Try to live according to the word of God, my friends. Your skin is darker than mine; but God judges men by their hearts, not by the color of their skins." This was strange doctrine from a southern pulpit. It was very offensive to slaveholders.”

“There I sat, in that great city, guiltless of crime, yet not daring to worship God in any of the churches. I heard the bells ringing for afternoon service, and, with contemptuous sarcasm, I said, "Will the preachers take for their text, 'Proclaim liberty to the captive, and the opening of prison doors to them that are bound'? or will they preach from the text, 'Do unto others as ye would they should do unto you'?”

“In Einstein's equation, time is a river. It speeds up, meanders, and slows down. The new wrinkle is it can have whirlpools and fork into two rivers. So, if the river of time can be bent into a pretzel, create whirlpools and fork into two rivers, then time travel cannot be ruled out.”