Quotes About Slavery

To condemn slavery was one thing—that I could do in my own individual heart—but female ministers!

I saw then what I hadn't seen before, that I was very good at despising slavery in the abstract, in the removed and anonymous masses, but in the concrete, intimate flesh of the girl beside me, I'd lost the ability to be repulsed by it. I'd grown comfortable with the particulars of evil.

I personally keep slave documents listing the value of slaves framed on my wall in California, and in my office in Chicago.

the Russell slaves name Tom has his own blacksmith shop on East Bay. Missus Russell let him work for hire all day

hereby certify that on this day, 26 November 1803, in the city of Charleston, in the state of South Carolina, I set free from slavery, Hetty Grimké, and bestow this certificate of manumission upon her. Sarah Moore Grimké

Already that morning missus had taken her cane stick to me once cross my backside for falling asleep during her devotions. Every day, all us slaves, everyone but Rosetta, who was old and demented, jammed in the dining room before breakfast to fight off sleep while missus taught us short Bible verses like "Jesus wept" and prayed out loud about God's favorite subject, obedience. If you nodded off, you got whacked right in the middle of God said this and God said that.

he quoted a scripture from Ephesians, reciting from memory. "Slaves, be obedient to them that are your masters, with fear and trembling, in singleness of heart, as unto Christ." Then he made what many, including my mother, would call the most eloquent extemporization on slavery they'd ever heard. "Slaves, I admonish you to be content with your lot, for it is the will of God! Your obedience is mandated by scripture. It is commanded by God through Moses.

Noise was on her list of slave sins, which we knew by heart. Number one: stealing. Number two: disobedience. Number three: laziness. Number four: noise. A slave was supposed to be like the Holy Ghost—don't see it, don't hear it, but it's always hovering round on ready.

Freedom cannot simply mean doing whatever strikes you at the moment: that way you're a slave to any whim or passing fancy. Real freedom involves control over your life as a whole, learning to make plans and promises and decisions, to take responsibility for your actions' consequences.

To have a museum chronicling the great crime that was African slavery in the United States of America would be to acknowledge that the evil was here . Americans prefer to picture the evil that was there , and from which the United States-a unique nation, one without any certifiably wicked leaders throughout its entire history-is exempt. That this country, like every other country, has its tragic past does not sit well with the founding, and still all-powerful belief in American exceptionalism.

Without slavery you have no cotton; without cotton you have no modern industry," wrote Karl Marx—an overstatement, but one with much truth.

In 1850, Dr. Samuel Cartwright reported in The New Orleans Medical and Surgical Journal the discovery of a new disease, which he called drapetomania. Drapetomania was a condition that caused sulkiness, dissatisfaction, and a desire to avoid service. It was used to describe slaves who sought to run away from their servitude: drapetes, the ancient Greek word for "runaway slave," and mania for "excessive energy or activity.

For all our penny-wisdom,'" he said, "'for all our soul-destroying slavery to habit, it is not to be doubted that all men have sublime thoughts.

And he was moved by the contrast with his own condition. A free man, relatively prosperous, just ending five weeks in luxury's lap, and he was quite unhappy. The slaves, treated abominably, at least showed cheer—the appearance of happiness.

Although slavery has long been a part of human history, American chattel slavery represents a case of human trauma incomparable in scope, duration and consequence to any other incidence of human enslavement.

Closer to the idea of reparations for slavery, the Florida legislature has paid $150,000 to eight black people, the only living survivors of white racist attacks in 1923 that left twenty-six black people dead in the small black community of Rosewood. The legislature also provided $500,000 to compensate African American families who lost property during the attacks on black homes, churches, and businesses.

The universal aspect of Stoicism is illustrated by the fact that Epictetus, a former slave, was influential on the Stoic reflections of the emperor Marcus Aurelius (AD 121–180).

The secrets of slavery are concealed like those of the Inquisition.

Is America truly a democracy? Has America ever been a democracy with the institution of slavery?

Brazil imported more enslaved Africans than any other American nation and was the last country in the hemisphere to abolish the institution, in 1888.

Today, the Americans have developed a new culture in science based on the slavery of graduate students. Now, graduate students of American institutions are afraid... He's got to perform. The post-doc is an indentured labourer.

The acceptance of the facts of African-American history and the African-American historian as a legitimate part of the academic community did not come easily. Slavery ended and left its false images of black people intact.

Wars in old times were made to get slaves. The modern implement of imposing slavery is debt.

Nineteenth century industrial society had created a new class of slaves,