Black americans Quote by Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr

““Until very recent times, few black Americans have regarded the African connection as a major theme in their lives. David Walker, in his 1829 Appeal . . . to the Colored Citizens of the World, said of America, "This land which we have watered with our tears and our blood is now our mother country". "No one idea has given rise to more oppression and persecution toward the colored people of this country", wrote the great Frederick Douglass, "than that which makes Africa, not America, their home. It is that wolfish idea that elbows us off the sidewalk, and denies us the rights of citizenship". When the freedmen after emancipation chose last names, they took not African names but the names of American heroes--Washington, Jefferson, Clay, Lincoln. "Centuries of residence, centuries of toil, centuries of suffering have made us American", a black high-school principal in Ohio said in 1874. "In language, in civilization, in fears, and in hopes we are Americans".””

— Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr