Bill Ayers Quotes


The great example, the killer example in history, is of course Abraham Lincoln, the great emancipator. Read his speeches. Read the debates. Wendell Phillips called him "the great slaver from Illinois."


Citations

Ayers, Bill. Public Enemy: Confessions of an American Dissident. Beacon Press, 2013.

Related Quotes

He was the Russian Reformer who ended serfdom and gave land to the peasants and then was assassinated. Ironically, both Alexander II and Lincoln were assassinated—because of their reform efforts—Lincoln for going too far; the Czar for not going far enough. See the Nickname that was given to the Czar: {622809}.


At the time, the prevailing federal policy was to return fugitive slaves to their owners. Lincoln was intent on keeping Kentucky and Maryland, both slave states, in the union, even at the cost of returning fugitive slaves. Shortly after, he came up with the policy of always returning fugitive slaves except in the rebellious states of the confederacy where the slaves were legally defined as ‘contraband’—war material, and thus could be seized by Union forces. Many fugitive slaves were thus employed by the Union for construction projects. Later, the Emancipation Proclamation set the slaves of the Confederacy free.


Bill Ayers
Bill Ayers
  • Born: December 26, 1944
  • Nationality: American
  • Profession: Activist

William Charles Ayers is an American elementary education theorist. During the 1960s, Ayers was a leader of the Weather Underground militant group, described by the FBI as a terrorist group, that opposed US involvement in the Vietnam War. He is known for his 1960s radical activism and his later work in education reform, curriculum and instruction.