Harry Johnston Quotes

The white race seems to me to blame in saying that all the reason for its interference in Africa is the improvement of the native African, and then to start on altering African institutions without in the least understanding them. It seems to me that the leading men among the European educated Africans have depended too much on the religious side of the question.

For a parcel of men, with long heads, to sit down in England, and frame laws for us, and pretend to dictate how we are to live, of whom they know nothing, never having been in a black man’s country during the whole course of their lives, is to me somewhat extraordinary!

Slavery is the first form of Globalization in which America participated.

Those who oppressed us described us as the Dark Continent!

Africa suffered under European dominance for centuries.

I hate imperialism. I detest colonialism. And I fear the consequences of their last bitter struggle for life. We are determined that our nation, and the world as a whole, shall not be the plaything of one small corner of the world.

In every sphere the Europeans must retain the right to rule the country and to keep it a white man’s country.

It is impossible for white men to live with the coloured races without adopting a conviction that…they have the right to command the services of the less civilized.

Not only are whites kicking us; they are telling us how to react to being kicked.

[Referring to Africans:] Whatever happens, we have got the Maxim Gun, and they have not.

The fate of the Niger, of black and brown people … is being determined in a Hertfordshire beech avenue … where there hasn’t been the ghost of a palm for … 2 million years. I suppose it is all due in some way to the Glacial periods which make us what we are, able to lay down the law to the colored peoples who kept snug in the tropics while we were battling against the cold.

What European nation which has undertaken the heavy responsibility of introducing the blessings and vices of civilization into the Dark Continent can claim immunity for its representatives

If you white men are desirous of throwing away your lives it is no reasons we Arabs should. We travel little by little to get ivory and slaves and are years about it. But you white men look only for rivers and lakes and mountains, and you spend your lives for no reason and no purpose.

I am the last king of Buganda [Uganda]. The white men will take my country after my death. While I am alive I know how to stop them. But after me, there will be an end to the line of the Black kings of Buganda.

Another doctrine, worse still is gaining ground. It is that the colored people are not sufficiently informed to chose what is best for themselves, and that they ought to be compelled to go to Africa. Many colonizationists now avow it openly. And thus there is danger that the society will grow up into one of the most dreadful systems of cruelty that have ever afflicted the world.

The truth that we are required to face about the slave trade is that it was founded on violence and terror … not done to Americans but done by Americans to others.

Now in speaking like this, it doesn't mean that we're anti-white, but it does mean we're anti-exploitation, we're anti-degradation, we're anti-oppression. And if the white man doesn't want us to be anti-him, let him stop oppressing and exploiting and degrading us.

White Man’s Road Thru Black Man’s Home!

When the missionaries came to Africa they had the Bible and we had the land. They said "Let us pray." We closed our eyes. When we opened them, we had the Bible and they had the land.

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.

The story of our inferiority is an old dodge, as I have said; for wherever men oppress their fellows, wherever they enslave them, they will endeavor to find the needed apology for such enslavement and oppression in the character of the people oppressed and enslaved

With what moral authority can they [the U. S.] speak of human rights — the rulers of a nation in which the millionaire and beggar coexist; the Indian is exterminated; the black man is discriminated against; the woman is prostituted; and the great masses of Chicanos, Puerto Ricans, and Latin Americans are scorned, exploited, and humiliated?

Nothing can justify the arrogant assumption that a clique of foreigners has the right to decide on the lives of a majority.

Slave keeping is a custom that casts the most indelible odium on a whole people, causing some...to infer that they are a different race formed by the Creator for brutal service, to drudge for us with their brethren of the stalls.

We are determined that there shall be no more exploitation of China. I have no wish to harp on old grievances, but realism demands that I should mention the ruthless and shameless exploitation of our country by the West in the past…. Such asinine stupidities must never be repeated, as much for your sake as for ours.