1,063 Quotes About Slavery

I admit that the slave does sometimes sing, dance and appear to be merry. But what does this prove? It only proves to my mind, that though slavery is armed with a thousand stings, it is not able entirely to kill the elastic spirit of the bondman.

In all my interviews with Mr. Lincoln I was impressed withhis entire freedom from popular prejudice against the coloredrace. He was the first great man that I talked with in the UnitedStates freely, who in no single instance reminded me of the difference between himself and myself, of the difference of color

Osei Bonsu, the powerful king of the West African state of Asante, was puzzled as to why the British would no longer buy his slaves. "If they think it bad now," he asked a local British representative in 1820, "why did they think it good before?

There are, as always, social and political aspects to seeing nothing as well. Pythagoras in the sixth century B.C. found it perfectly natural to count slaves as 'nothing,' . . . Slaves, like machines today, were simply taken for granted. These days, we take for granted everything from homeless people sleeping in the street to telephones and computers. We have learned to renormalize these things as part of 'nothing.' Whatever is standard becomes effectively invisible.

I am the offspring of their sacrifice, the fruit of a freedom tree planted by the enslaved and watered with the tears of the shackled,the daydream of slave minds drunk with precious thoughts of liberty, the answered prayer of an oppressed people. Because they were,I am.  

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.

And there was a lot of exclaiming about some Massa Patrick Henry having cried out, 'Give me liberty or give me death!' Kunta liked that, but he couldn't understand how somebody white could say it; white folks looked pretty free to him.

He thought that it was impossible for a massa to perceive that being owned by anyone could never be enjoyable.

At the time of the Russian emancipation, about 20 percent of the Russian population lived in serfdom. In the United States at this time, about 10 percent of the population lived in slavery.