"The historical significance of the Proclamation is not so much that it enacted the emancipation of people of African descent; on the contrary, it was a military strategy. But if we examine the meaning of this historical moment we might better be able to grasp the failures as well as the successes of emancipation. I have thought that perhaps we were not asked to reflect on the significance of the Emancipation Proclamation because we might realize that we were never really emancipated. But anyway, at least we may be able to understand the dialectics of emancipation; because we still live the popular myth that Lincoln freed the slaves and that this continues to be perpetuated in popular culture, even by the film Lincoln. Lincoln did not free the slaves. We also live with the myth that the mid-twentieth century Civil Rights Movement freed the . Civil rights, of course, constitute an essential element of the freedom that was demanded at that time, but it was not the whole story."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Spiritual teachersVegetariansPhilosophers from the United StatesAnti-war activistsCommunist Party USA politicians
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Imported from EN Wikiquote
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Angela_Davis
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Angela Davis
130 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Angela Davis →
Related Quotes
"Where cultural representations do not reach out beyond themselves, there is the danger that they will function as the…"
"Progressive art can assist people to learn not only about the objective forces at work in the society in which they l…"
"Prisons do not disappear problems, they disappear human beings. And the practice of disappearing vast numbers of peop…"
"The challenge of the twenty-first century is not to demand equal opportunity to participate in the machinery of oppre…"
"The reason I am a communist is because I believe in a total revolution which is going to overthrow the capitalist con…"
"When you talk about a revolution, most people think violence; without realizing that the real content of any kind of …"
"From her involvement with the Student Nonviolent Coorditing Committee during the 1960s to her current leadership of t…"
"Palestine is a moral litmus test for the world"
"I am a Communist because I am convinced that the reason we have been forcefully compelled to eke out an existence at …"
"It is both humiliating and humbling to discover that a single generation after the events that constructed me as a pu…"