Slavery Quotes
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Slavery, Confederate Vice-President Alexander H. Stephens proudly affirmed, was the cornerstone of the Confederacy. Accordingly, slavery's disintegration compelled the Confederate government to take steps to save the institution, and these policies, in turn, sundered white society.
Eric Foner -
Freedom and slavery are mental states.
Mahatma Gandhi
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I am principled against this kind of traffic in the human species . . . and to disperse the families I have an aversion.
George Washington -
Slavery was the betrayal of the American Promise at the moment that promise was made.
Steve Erickson -
I have made some enemies. My enemies in the southern states consisted of those who oppressed the black slave. My enemies in the north are among those who would perpetuate the slavery of the wage workers
Albert Parsons -
While boasting of our noble deeds we're careful to conceal the ugly fact that by an iniquitous money system we have nationalized a system of oppression which, though more refined, is not less cruel than the old system of chattel slavery.
Horace Greeley -
Slavery in America was perpetuated not merely by human badness but also by human blindness. ... Men convinced themselves that a system that was so economically profitable must be morally justifiable. ... Science was commandeered to prove the biological inferiority of the Negro. Even philosophical logic was manipulated [exemplified by] an Aristotlian syllogism: All men are made in the image of God; God, as everyone knows, is not a Negro; Therefore, the Negro is not a man.
Martin Luther King, Jr. -
The Civil War was started over economic issues, not slavery. The War was not popular in the North until the issue of slavery was added at a later time to turn it into a moral crusade.
G. Edward Griffin
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To end slavery, you must overcome the mental and physical inertia of the masses and quicken their intelligence and creative faculty.
Mahatma Gandhi -
I grew up thinking that it was immoral to idealize the past because, in the past, there was slavery and no penicillin.
Elif Batuman -
“Lawrence Hill, a cultural and spiritual descendant of West African griots, has used his vast storytelling talents to create an epic story that spans three continents. The Book of Negroes recites the pain, misery and liberation of one African woman, Aminata Diallo, who was stolen from her homeland and sold into American slavery. Through Aminata, Hill narrates the terrifying story of slavery and puts at the centre a female experience of the African Diaspora. I wept upon reading this story. The Book of Negroes is courageous, breathtaking, simply brilliant.”
Afua Cooper -
When a good man lends himself to the advocacy of slavery, he must, at least for a time, feel himself to be any where but at home, amongst his new thoughts, doctrines, and modes of reasoning.
Gerrit Smith -
Slavery is malignantly aristocratic.
Antoinette Brown Blackwell -
The first reason for people's slavery is our ignorance, and above all, our ignorance of ourselves.
G. I. Gurdjieff
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With education symmetrical and true we will take the dead mass buried by slavery's hand and touch them to life. This beauteous angel, which has always done its work for those on earth, will roll away the stone from the tomb where is buried a race, and my people will come forth to their glory and the amazement of the world.
William Tecumseh Vernon -
Freedom is slavery some poets tell us. Enslave yourself to the right leader's truth, Christ's or Karl Marx', and it will set you free.
Robert Frost -
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.
John Henrik Clarke -
A life of reaction is a life of slavery, intellectually and spiritually. One must fight for a life of action, not reaction.
Rita Mae Brown -
It's the new slavery. It came out of the drug laws and it really is something we're going to have to confront, but I don't see enough people up in arms about that. We need to be.
Marian Wright Edelman -
If you want to understand America, it's slavery.
Colson Whitehead
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It's crazy: the first black man to actually step foot in America came as a free man, as an explorer, with the Spaniards. That's something for me - as a black American, it gives me a little bit of pride because we were free and respected somewhere else before slavery became what it was.
Aldis Hodge -
This year has begun hopefully for right thinkers. After all these centuries of feudal barbarism and political slavery, it is surprising to see how the word of 'liberty' sets minds on fire.
Napoleon Bonaparte -
How, for example, did Obama get elected as a complete unknown? ... There is a one word answer: slavery. America's national guilt over slavery continues to benefit Obama, who ironically is not himself descended from slaves.
Dinesh D'Souza -
On this International Day for the Abolition of Slavery let us reaffirm the inherent dignity of all men, women and children. And let us redouble our efforts to build societies in which slavery truly is a term for the history books.
Ban Ki-moon