William Parker Quotes
One fact, when I was a slave, often filled me with indignation. There were many poor white lads of about my own age, belonging to families scattered around, who were as poor in personal effects as we were; and yet, though our companions, (when we chose to tolerate them,) they did not have to be controlled by a master, to go and come at his command, to be sold for his debts, or whenever he wanted extra pocket-money. The preachers of a slave-trading gospel frequently told us, in their sermons, that we should be "good boys," and not break into master's hen-roost, nor steal his bacon; but they never told this to these poor white people, although they knew very well that they encouraged the slaves to steal, trafficked in stolen goods, and stole themselves.
Parker and other escaped slaves in Christiana fought off slave catchers and killed the slave owner leading them. Charged with treason, he escaped to Canada with his family and lived there the rest of his life. While not a polished writer, after he himself had escaped and went to Christiana and leaned to read and write. He wrote this narrative of his life as a slave—one of the few written works we have from slaves.
William Parker, Mid 19th Century, Escaped Negro Slave, Abolitionist, and Freedom Fighter in the Christiana (Pennsylvania) Riot, Comment on Slave Sales, “The Freedman's Story”, The Atlantic Monthly, March 1866
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His solution was not to change the prejudice or improve the opportunity for Blacks but to have complete separation of the races. See {625687}.
The President often referred to this statement as an example of his wife’s acumen. She had been born to a Southern plantation and inherited the land and the slaves. Her view, and his, were typical of the Southern point of view in early America.
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Many whites thought that the solution to the problem of free and emancipated Negroes was to send them to Africa. They assumed that the negroes would by desirous of that solution also, but they rarely asked them. When they did, they received answers much like this one from one of the leading Black clergymen in America.
He was not only an atheist himself, but he was a major opponent of organized religion which he regarded as one or the major initiators and drivers of slavery, segregation and discrimination. For this reason he was critical of Martin Luther King—{583307}. His irreligiosity had always prevented his gaining much support from his fellow African Americans even though a great writer like H. L. Menken considered Schuyler, "the best writer in America".
The first sentence is inscribed on the Jefferson Memorial in Washington DC. The last two sentences are rarely quoted.
Newsletter of the United Sons of Confederate Veterans
William Parker was a former slave who escaped from Maryland to Pennsylvania, where he became an abolitionist and anti-slavery activist in Christiana. He was a farmer and led a black self-defense organization. He was notable as a principal figure in the Christiana incident (or riot), 1851, also known as the Christiana Resistance. Edward Gorsuch, a Maryland slaveowner who owned four slaves who had fled over the state border to Parker's farm, was killed and other white men in the party to capture the fugitives were wounded. The events brought national attention to the challenges of enforcing the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850.
