Political Quotes

“Thank you very much to Representative Payne and to the gentlelady from California. Madam Speaker, I rise today in support of H. Res. 272, a resolution commemorating the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade. The abolition of the trade was an important milestone in the fight against slavery, but that campaign continued throughout the 19th century and it still continues today. Currently, 27 million people are held in slavery around the world. Like the slaves of the past, slaves of today are controlled by violence, and suffer the theft of their labor and humanity. Our commemoration today rings hollow if we do not learn from the lessons of the abolition movement of the past. That botched emancipation of 1865 forced four million ex-slaves into the economic social society with no access to education, political participation or equal citizenship, nor a true recognition of their humanity. As I reflect on my own history as a descendant of African slaves who were survivors of the Middle Passage, my ancestors, kidnapped, brutalized and brought to the island Nation of Jamaica West Indies where centuries later my parents were born, who then migrated as subjects of the Queen to Brooklyn, New York, where I was born. The history of Africans in the Americas has been suppressed as evidenced by the lack of presence in our school's curriculums. Today, we see the results of granting freedom without dignity.”