If you feel like the beginning of your history is rooted in slavery, that really, I think, messes with your sense of self, your self-esteem, and your self-worth.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I wasn't trying to work out my own ancestry. I was trying to get people to feel slavery. I was trying to get across the kind of emotional and psychological stones that slavery threw at people.
I can speak of slavery only so far as it came under my own observation - only so far as I have known and experienced it in my own person.
You got to remember that slavery's very complex. It has a lot of levels to it.
I think only now am I at the age where I've forgiven the past enough to say, 'You know what? Slavery was there. Let's talk about it in ways that will help us face tomorrow.
I have sworn eternal opposition to slavery, and by the blessing of God, I will never go back.
I am not ashamed of my grandparents for having been slaves. I am only ashamed of myself for having at one time being ashamed.
But when you see personal artifacts relating to - by genealogy at least - a living human being, it was just more impressive to me than just about anything I've ever read about slavery before.
Slavery is the first step towards civilization. In order to develop it is necessary that things should be much better for some and much worse for others, then those who are better off can develop at the expense of others.
When people think of slavery, they think of an era from the distant past. Grainy photographs from Civil War times. And yet it goes on.
Slavery is something that is all too often swept under the carpet. The shame doesn't even belong to us, but we still experience it because we're a part of the African race. If it happened to one, it happened to all. We carry that burden.
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