Thomas Nelson Page Quotes


The Negro does not possess the qualities to raise himself above slavery.


Context

Under the previous Republican administrations, virulent and overt racists were not generally appointed especially as they were generally then Democrats. However, when Woodrow Wilson was elected president, he not only appointed many overt racists but he himself may have been one of the most racist Presidents every to inhabit the white House. He fired almost all the Blacks who held positions in the Federal government.


Citations

Thomas Nelson Page Article in the North American 1892

Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations

Related Quotes

This quotation is significant. Ibn Khalodun was one of the great intellectual Arab scholars, yet he looked upon Blacks as subhuman and fit for slavery. While Islam preaches the equality of all people, the Arabs had and many still have a raciest view of Blacks. The Arabs were the leaders among the slave traders and many an American Captain of a slave trader bought his slaves from Arab slave traders. Saudi Arabia was the last nation to outlaw legal slavery (1963) and it is still illegally practiced in Saudi Arabia and other Arab states of the Middle East. The attitude can be seen in much of the Arab Middle East even today. For examples, the Muslim Arabs in Northern Sudan refer to the Black non-Islamic Southerners using a derogatory term that means slave.


The racial inequality did cause a Black revolution in the 1960s. The arrival and influence of Martin Luther King, at the time Black revolution might have turned violent, and the willingness of a substantial number of whites to implement the Civil Rights revolution functioned as a safety valve so that there was substantial reform towards much more racial equality.


Incredibly enough, after the Civil War and emancipation, most Virginia leaders opposed any form of rights for Blacks with one of the major reasons being that they were ignorant and uneducated. It was actually a crime to teach even a free Black to read.


Blacks were not allowed to testify in court in the Southern States. The reasons why has never been clear. Many slave keeping societies like Ancient Rome not only allowed slaves to testify in the courts, but required them to do so in many circumstances even when their owners were opposed.


Booth was the younger son of a very prominent Northern family of actors. His older brother was considered the greatest American actor, and the rest of the family were abolitionists and vehement Union supporters. They found young John’s views reprehensible.


Thomas Nelson Page
Thomas Nelson Page
  • Born: April 23, 1853
  • Died: November 1, 1922
  • Nationality: American
  • Profession: Writer

Thomas Nelson Page was an American lawyer and writer. He also served as the U.S. ambassador to Italy from 1913 to 1919 under the administration of President Woodrow Wilson during World War I. In his writing, Page popularized the Southern tradition of the plantation genre. Page first got the public's attention with his story "Marse Chan" which was published in the Century Illustrated Magazine. One of Page's most notable works include The Burial of the Guns and In Ole Virginia. Page died in Oakland on November 1, 1922 aged 69.