A Quote by Eric Foner

Colonization was the idea that once slavery ended African-Americans should be encouraged - or required, in some people's view - required to leave the country. It's part of an attitude toward the abolition of slavery which says America should not be a slave society, but it can never be a multiracial society. You can never have free black and white people living together.

Eric Foner

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Abolition Abolition Of Slavery African African-American America Attitude Be A Slave Be Encouraged Black Black And White Colonization Country Encouraged Ended Free Idea Leave Living Living Together Multiracial Never Once Part People Required Says Should Slave Slavery Society Some Some People Together Toward View Which White

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Eric Foner
American - Historian
Born: February 7, 1943

America says we are a great democratic society and other people should follow our example. Well, I say we benefited from slavery, and as a nation, we never faced that because the people in power chose not to.

Jim Brown

Black people in America have come from slavery to other forms of being oppressed and there are some things that come with that - some pain and anger that come with that and we as black people have to deal with it to heal that. White people have to understand it and have some compassion toward it.

Common

I think what is being pointed out by African-Americans is that from slavery forward they have been living in a supposed democracy which treats them as less than other citizens, less than whites in the society. And I think that pointing out that there are structures of discrimination in the society, deeply rooted racist structures, that segregate housing, that send black children to ill-equipped schools, that discriminate in the workplace - these are truths about our society that must be faced.

Joan Wallach Scott

I never mean, unless some particular circumstances should compel it, to possess another slave by purchase, it being among my first wishes to see some plan adopted, by which slavery in this country may be abolished by law.

George Washington

There are some really great books that have been written about slavery, but I don't think that the discourse about it in society has been very accurate or healthy. I don't think we've come up with ways to tell it that don't insult people or hit them in the wrong way. Part of the problem is that most people don't really understand what slavery was anyway. Most white people didn't own slaves. Slavery was a way of life, just like driving cars is a way of life now. It doesn't mean that it was right.

James McBride

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

Historian Larry Hise notes in his book Pro-Slavery that ministers 'wrote almost half of all defenses of slavery published in America.' He listed 275 men of the cloth who used the Bible to prove that white people were entitled to own black people as work animals.

James A. Haught

As for slavery, there is no need for me to speak of its bad aspects. The only thing requiring explanation is the good side of slavery. I do not mean indirect slavery, the slavery of proletariat; I mean direct slavery, the slavery of the Blacks in Surinam, in Brazil, in the southern regions of North America. Direct slavery is as much the pivot upon which our present-day industrialism turns as are machinery, credit, etc. … Slavery is therefore an economic category of paramount importance.

Karl Marx

Lincoln has accepted America as a biracial society. He's talking about giving at least some black men the right to vote. In the Emancipation Proclamation he advises some blacks to labor faithfully for reasonable wages, here in the United States. He doesn't say anything about them leaving the country. He puts black men in the army. That is a whole different vision than simply saying "let's have them go out of the country." I think what's interesting is the change in Lincoln's view, but one must realize that he did adhere to this idea of colonization for many years.

Eric Foner

The true story is that black people need to tell their history. Very few films are made by black people about slavery. That itself is a crime because slavery is a very important historical event that has held our people hostage. Forget white people's role in it. In the end what's important is black people remain and live with the scars and psychological issues.

Haile Gerima

There are a million boys growing up in the United States who have never seen a saloon, and who will never know the handicap of liquor and this excellent condition will go on spreading over the country when the wet press and the paid propogandists of booze are forgotten. The abolition of the commercialized liquor trade in this country is as final as the abolition of slavery.

Henry Ford

Slavery results from laws, laws are made by governments, and, therefore people can only be freed from slavery by the abolition of governments.... And it is time for people to understand that governments not only are not necessary, but are harmful and most highly immoral institutions, in which a self-respecting, honest man cannot and must not take part.

Leo Tolstoy

What we forget is that African Americans made the largest contribution to America, economically, before the Civil War of any sector of society. I read that the railroads were worth about $2 billion, but slavery was a $3 billion asset.

Andrew Young

The greatest evil of American slavery was not involuntary servitude but rather the narrative of racial differences we created to legitimate slavery. Because we never dealt with that evil, I don't think slavery ended in 1865, it just evolved.

Bryan Stevenson

A wise man will not leave the right to the mercy of chance, nor wish it to prevail through the power of the majority. There is but little virtue in the action of masses of men. When the majority shall at length vote for the abolition of slavery, it will be because they are indifferent to slavery, or because there is but little slavery left to be abolished by their vote. They will then be the only slaves. Only his vote can hasten the abolition of slavery who asserts his own freedom by his vote.

Henry David Thoreau

Women and LBGT people have the advantage that they are everybody's son, daughter, cousin, nephew, aunt, uncle. They are in a position to change hearts, and you saw it happen actually. African-Americans, not so much. They are separated from the white oppressive population by geography, housing, segregation, centuries of slavery. There is a tremendous wall between black America and white. I would say you open the door with the force of law, and then you can start to change hearts.

Linda Hirshman

A Quote by Eric Foner

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