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Slavery Quotes

Browse 2495 quotes about Slavery.

Slavery Quotes

“The confused mass of rules of conduct called law, which has been bequeathed to us by slavery, serfdom, feudalism, and royalty, has taken the place of those stone monsters, before whom human victims used to be immolated, and whom slavish savages dared not even touch lest they should be slain by the thunderbolts of heaven.”

Should Humans Has Beens Law Used Heaven Taken Mass Stones Victim Slavery Monsters Used To Be Confused Savages Royalty Feudalism Thunderbolts

Book:Anarchism: A Collection of Revolutionary Writings

Source: Anarchism: A Collection of Revolutionary Writings

“When every one is to cultivate himself into man, condemning a man to machine-like labor amounts to the same thing as slavery. If a factory-worker must tire himself to death twelve hours and more, he is cut off from becoming man. Every labor is to have the intent that the man be satisfied.... His labor is nothing taken by itself, has no object in itself, is nothing complete in itself; he labors only into another's hands, and is used (exploited) by this other.”

Ifs Men Hands Used Hours Taken Cutting Objects He Man Amount Becoming Labor Machines Slavery Workers Satisfied Factories Twelve Tire Condemning Factory Workers

Author:Max Stirner

“I don't think there are any pure Africans of the African Americans, but the African part of our history was pretty much taken away from us during slavery, so the 60s gave us a chance, because of the civil rights movement, to kind of re-examine and make some sort of formal connection to our African-ness.”

Thinking Kind Chance Taken Rights Movement Pure Connections Slavery Civil Rights African American Formal Civil Rights Movement

Author:Herbie Hancock

“It is over one hundred years since the abolition of slavery. The Negro people in the United States have taken plenty and they have reached a stage where they have decided that they are not going to take any more.”

People Years States United United States Taken Stage Hundred Decided Slavery Plenty Abolition Abolition Of Slavery

Author:C. L. R. James

“... some of my people could have been left [in Africa] and are living there. And I can't understand them and they don't know me and I don't know them because all we had was taken away from us. And I became kind of angry; I felt the anger of why this had to happen to us. We were so stripped and robbed of our background, we wind up with nothing.”

People Knows Kind Has Beens I Can Happens Left Felt Taken Wind Slavery Angry Backgrounds Oppression Know Me Could Have Been

Author:Fannie Lou Hamer

“The real names of our people were destroyed during slavery. The last name of my forefathers was taken from them when they were brought to America and made slaves, and then the name of the slave master was given, which we refuse, we reject that name today and refuse it. I never acknowledge it whatsoever.”

People Made Real Today Lasts America Names Given Taken Masters Slavery Slave Refuse Destroyed Acknowledge Rejects Forefathers

Author:Malcolm X

“The breakdown of the black community, in order to maintain slavery, began with the breakdown of the black family. Men and women were not legally allowed to get married because you couldn't have that kind of love. It might get in the way of the economics of slavery. Your children could be taken from you and literally sold down the river.”

Men Way Kind Children Might Order Black Community Taken Married Men And Women Economics Rivers Slavery Your Children Breakdown Kinds Of Love Black Community Family Man Black Family

Author:Kerry Washington

“I never heard weeping like that before or after; not from a child, nor a man wounded in the palm, nor a tortured man, nor a girl dragged off to slavery from a taken city. If you heard the woman you most hate in the world weep so, you would go to comfort her. You would fight your way through fire and spears to reach her. And I knew who wept, and what had been done to her, and who had done it.”

Ifs Men World Way Children Done Hate Girl Fighting Cities Taken Fire Heard Comfort Slavery Wounded Palms Weeping Spears

Author:C. S. Lewis

“It is a sad hardship and slavery to people who live in towns, that in their movements they know of one dimension only; they walk along the line as if they were led on a string. The transition from the line to the plane into the two dimensions, when you wander across a field or through a wood, is a splendid liberation to the slaves, like the French Revolution. But in the air you are taken into the full freedom of the three dimensions; after long ages of exile and dreams the homesick heart throws itself into the arms of space.”

Source: Out of Africa

“All good men wish the entire abolition of slavery, as soon as it can take place with safety to the public, and for the lasting good of the present wretched race of slaves. The only possible step that could be taken towards it by the convention was to fix a period after which they should not be imported.”

Men Should Wish Race Steps Taken Periods Safety Slavery Slave Good Man Lasting Conventions Wretched Abolition Abolition Of Slavery

Author:Oliver Ellsworth

“The moment this House undertakes to legislate upon this subject slavery, it dissolves the Union. Should it be my fortune to have a seat upon this floor, I will abandon it the instant the first decisive step is taken looking towards legislation of this subject. I will go home to preach, and if I can, practice, disunion, and civil war, if needs be. A revolution must ensue, and this republic sink in blood.”

Source: Remarks of Mr. Hammond, of South Carolina, on the Question of Receiving Petitions for the Abolition of Slavery in the District of Columbia

“The American people have entered upon the mightiest civic struggle known to their history. ... The Golden Rule is rejected by the heads of all the great departments of trade, and the law of Cain, which repudiates the obligations that we are mutually under to one another, is fostered and made the rule of action throughout the world. Corporate feudality has taken the place of chattel slavery and vaunts its power in every state.”

People World Made States Action Law Known Struggle Taken Slavery Trade Obligation Golden Corporate Department Rejected Civics Golden Rule Cain Vaunt

Author:James B. Weaver

“As a result of the sufferings and hard labor they endured, the Indians choose and have chosen suicide. Occasionally a hundred have committed mass suicide. The women, exhausted by labor, have shunned conception and childbirth . . . Many, when pregnant, have taken something to abort and have aborted. Others after delivery have killed their children with their own hands, so as not to leave them in such oppressive slavery.”

Children Hard Hands Suffering Results Taken Mass Hundred Labor Slavery Suicide Committed Chosen Conception Pregnant Exhausted Delivery Childbirth

Book:Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong

Source: Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong

“Any unarmed people are slaves, or are subject to slavery at any given moment. If the guns are taken out of the hands of the people and only the pigs have guns, then it's off to the concentration camps, the gas chambers, or whatever the fascists in America come up with. One of the democratic rights of the United States, the Second Amendment to the Constitution, gives the people the right to bear arms. However, there is a greater right; the right of human dignity that gives all men the right to defend themselves.”

“Everyday, day & night, we hear the lies that September 11th is the worst tragedy, worst accident, and worst crime to ever been committed on American soil. We bear witness that the worst crime, the worst tragedy, that has ever taken place on American soil is not September 11th. It's not the twin towers. It's the holocaust that black folks been dealing with for 400 years.”