Slavery Quotes

“I am naturally anti-slavery. If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong.”

“The biggest form of slavery is the slavery to fear”

“White liberals, instead of comparing what has happened to the black family since the liberal welfare state policies of the 1960s were put into practice, compare black families to white families and conclude that the higher rates of broken homes and unwed motherhood among blacks are due to “a legacy of slavery.” But why the large-scale disintegration of the black family should have begun a hundred years after slavery is left unexplained. Whatever the situation of the black family relative to the white family, in the past or the present, it is clear that broken homes were far more common among blacks at the end of the twentieth century than they were in the middle of that century or at the beginning of that century —even though blacks at the beginning of the twentieth century were just one generation out of slavery. The widespread and casual abandonment of their children, and of the women who bore them, by black fathers in the ghettos of the late twentieth century was in fact a painfully ironic contrast with what had happened in the immediate aftermath of slavery a hundred years earlier, when observers in the South reported desperate efforts of freed blacks to find family members who had been separated from them during the era of slavery.”

“Had it not been for slavery, the death penalty would have likely been abolished in America. Slavery became a haven for the death penalty.”

“The frequent hearing of my mistress readingthe bible--for she often read aloud when herhusband was absent--soon awakened mycuriosity in respect to this mystery of reading,and roused in me the desire to learn. Having nofear of my kind mistress before my eyes, (shehad given me no reason to fear,) I frankly askedher to teach me to read; and without hesitation,the dear woman began the task, and very soon,by her assistance, I was master of the alphabet,and could spell words of three or fourletters...Master Hugh was amazed at thesimplicity of his spouse, and, probably for thefirst time, he unfolded to her the true philosophyof slavery, and the peculiar rules necessary tobe observed by masters and mistresses, in themanagement of their human chattels. Mr. Auldpromptly forbade the continuance of her[reading] instruction; telling her, in the firstplace, that the thing itself was unlawful; that itwas also unsafe, and could only lead to mischief.... Mrs. Auld evidently felt the force ofhis remarks; and, like an obedient wife, beganto shape her course in the direction indicated byher husband. The effect of his words, on me,was neither slight nor transitory. His ironsentences--cold and harsh--sunk deep into myheart, and stirred up not only my feelings into asort of rebellion, but awakened within me aslumbering train of vital thought. It was a newand special revelation, dispelling a painfulmystery, against which my youthfulunderstanding had struggled, and struggled invain, to wit: the white man's power to perpetuatethe enslavement of the black man. "Very well,"thought I; "knowledge unfits a child to be aslave." I instinctively assented to theproposition; and from that moment I understoodthe direct pathway from slavery to freedom. Thiswas just what I needed; and got it at a time, andfrom a source, whence I least expected it....Wise as Mr. Auld was, he evidently underratedmy comprehension, and had little idea of theuse to which I was capable of putting theimpressive lesson he was giving to his wife....That which he most loved I most hated; and thevery determination which he expressed to keepme in ignorance, only rendered me the moreresolute in seeking intelligence.”

“Only by acknowledging the full extent of slavery's full grip on U.S. Society - its intimate connections to present day wealth and power, the depth of its injury to black Americans, the shocking nearness in time of its true end - can we reconcile the paradoxes of current American life.”

“Work or die’—this is the essence of slavery, of compulsion. And yet this is our world. Most of our world is enslaved but does not know it. Only the homeless are free, and for their freedom we sentence them to death. To refuse compulsion is to earn death, suffering, and calumny. It is not to refuse work—the homeless work very hard, endure many hardships we cannot imagine in our comfortable slavery. And yet we call our slavery freedom. We do not know what freedom means, yet.”

“Abolitionism was a movement to end private slavery. Libertarianism is a movement to end private and public slavery.”

“Negro Slavery is an evil of Colossal magnitude and I am utterly averse to the admission of Slavery into the Missouri Territories.”

“it means what it say," Ethel said. "It means that a Hebrew may not enslave a Hebrew. But the sons of Ham are not of that tribe. The were cursed, with black skin and tails. Where the Scripture condemns slavery, it is not speaking of negro slavery at all.”