That section is not anxious to reduce the illiteracy of its colored population and to raise the standard of their intelligence, for it thinks that an ignorant labor class is less difficult to manage than an intelligent one.
Archibald Henry Grimké: “That section is not anxious to reduce the illiteracy of its colored population and to raise the standard of their…”
Editor's note · Context
Grimké argues that the South prefers an uneducated labor class to maintain control, reflecting systemic racism in educational policies.
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To my apprehension, the subject of slavery involves interests of greater moment to our welfare as a republic, and demands a more prudent and minute investigation than any other which has come before the American people since the…
Whenever there is a contest between the oppressed and the oppressor, the weapons being equal between the parties, God knows that my heart must be with the oppressed, and always against the oppressor.
It is a gangrene preying upon our vitals--an earthquake rumbling under our feet--a mine accumulating material for a national catastrophe.
I am invited to occupy a broader field, and to engage in a higher enterprise; that field embraces the whole country--that enterprise is in behalf of the slave population.