Chiwetel Ejiofor Quotes
I didn't know anything about '12 Years a Slave.' Not the book, not Solomon Northup, which I was quite shocked by, once I'd read it, that it wasn't a seminal text. I think it deserves to be.
Ejiofor, Chiwetel. Interview. Time, Time Inc., 2013.
Brown was the richest man in Rhode Island and made much of his money in the slave trade. This quotation shows that slavery was not completely a North verses South split. Northerners like Brown for whose family Brown University was named, was as virulent supporter of slavery as the most ardent Southerner.
This is a memorable historical quotations because it shows the extreme level of hypocrisy and lack of logic of which man is capable of when his way of life and world view is threatened. In this case Gordon sees the right to own slaves as a basic civil right. He does not see that the right of possessing slaves totally denies virtually all civil rights to the slave. In his and other Southern views, to assure a man’s liberty he had to have the right and freedom to deny freedom to others, torture others at will, destroy families and remove all hope and aspiration of some people.
In the first part of the 18th Century, one county in Virginia became a magnet for runaway indentured servants, The more runaways settled there the more empathetic and hospitable they were to new runaway servants. The culture at the time had identified knowing your place in society and accepting it. So a runaway indentured servant had renounced their oath and contrast to serve their masters, and hence were not Christians. These renegades were armed and there was not enough political will or support for forcing the County to comply with the laws and mores of the time.
Chiwetel Umeadi Ejiofor CBE is a British actor and filmmaker. After enrolling at the National Youth Theatre in 1995 and attending the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, at age 19 and three months into his course, Ejiofor was cast by Steven Spielberg to play a supporting role in the film Amistad (1997) as James Covey.
