Grace Lee Boggs Quotes
I had no idea what I was gonna do after I got my degree in philosophy in 1940. But what I did know was at that time, if you were a Chinese-American, even department stores wouldn't hire you. They'd come right out and say, 'We don't hire Orientals.'
Boggs, Grace Lee. Interview by Bill Moyers. Bill Moyers Journal, PBS, 15 June 2007.
Charleston was in the Southern part of the state where most people supported slavery. Douglas made an unequivocal pitch for the racist vote {600060} and forced Lincoln to take a stand. Like many politicians today, Lincoln decided to give the audience what they wanted to hear. It is not clear whether or not he ever believed this statement or was just pandering in a political campaign. He had never said this in the Northern part of the state of before. Lincoln’s views on race changed and matured over the years, culminating in the Emancipation Proclamation. Lincoln lost the Senate seat to Douglas.
Interestingly, before 1705, there was no legislative prohibition against Indians and Free Negroes being full citizens including holding public office and voting. This act prohibited them from holding public office, but did not prohibit them from Voting provided they met the general voting requirement of being a landholder. However, 18 years later, voting by these minorities was no longer allowed. See Quotation 643588.
This quotation is a wonderful use of sarcasm to make an important point in just a few words.
Grace Lee Boggs was an American author, social activist, philosopher, and feminist. She is known for her years of political collaboration with C. L. R. James and Raya Dunayevskaya in the 1940s and 1950s. In the 1960s she and James Boggs, her husband of some forty years, took their own political direction. By 1998, she had written four books, including an autobiography. In 2011, still active at the age of 95, she wrote a fifth book, The Next American Revolution: Sustainable Activism for the Twenty-First Century, with Scott Kurashige and published by the University of California Press. She is regarded as a key figure in the Asian American Movement.
