"Where is our historian to give us our side view and our chair of Negro history, to teach our people our own history? We are at the mercy of the "flotsam and jetsam" of the white writers. The very learned Rev. Alexander Crummell, before the American Negro Academy, stated that he heard J. C. Calhoun say that the inferiority of the Negro was so self-evident that he would not believe him human unless he could conjugate Greek verbs; and yet it must have been evident to Calhoun that in North Carolina there were many Negroes held as slaves who could read and write Arabic.¹ In those days men like Juan Latino, Amo, Capitein, Francis Williams, Rev. J. Pennington, and others could not only conjugate the Greek and Hebrew verbs, but had shown unmistakable evidences of learning, for they had received degrees from the universities of world-famed reputation. Yet in those days there were many whites unrestrained, enjoying the opportunities of education, who could not conjugate Greek roots nor verbs of the spoken language of the land. Yet this barrier was set up to persons restrained by force from the enjoyment of the most ordinary rights."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Civil rights activistsNon-fiction authors from the United StatesEducators from the United StatesHistorians from the United StatesPeople from Puerto Rico
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Imported from EN Wikiquote
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Arturo_Alfonso_Schomburg
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Arturo Alfonso Schomburg
Arturo Alfonso Schomburg (January 24, 1874 – June 10, 1938), was a historian, writer, collector, and activist for equal rights. Schomburg was a Puerto Rican of African and German descent. He moved to the United States in 1891, where he researched and raised awareness of the contributions that Afro-Latin Americans and African Americans have made to society. He was an important intellectual figure in the Harlem Renaissance. Over the years, he collected literature, art, slave narratives, and other
41 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Arturo Alfonso Schomburg →
Related Quotes
"Imagine a boy living in the city of his birth and not knowing who was the most noted native painter! It is true the f…"
"The works of José Julián Acosta and Salvador Brau have been my first inspiration to a further and intense study of th…"
"José Martà always stated that the republic would have been impossible without the brawn and muscle of all races."
"What of it if the darker races are getting consciousness, isn't the world large enough for the people of all bloods t…"
"There is a sad and tragic chapter in the history of Cuba under Spanish rule, that seems to circle with pathetic recol…"
"Many Cuban Negroes curse the dawn of the Republic. Negroes were welcomed in the time of oppression, in the time of ha…"
"We have been instructed to look at the Negro as "idle, worthless, indolent and disloyal," but a careful examination o…"
"The African brought to America among his patrimony musical instruments...The African fetiches with their religious da…"
"The American Negro must remake his past in order to make his future."
"Imagine a boy living in the city of his birth and not knowing who was the most noted native painter! It is true the f…"