Right now I'm thinking a good deal about emancipation. One of our sins was slavery, another was emancipation. It's a paradox. In theory, emancipation was one of the glories of our democracy - and it was. But the way it was done led to tragedy, turning four million people loose with no jobs or trades or learning. And then in 1877 for a few electoral votes, just abandoning them entirely. A huge amount of pain and trouble resulted. Everybody in America is still paying for it.
Shelby Foote
american-history, american-society, civil-war-narrative, education, educational-inequity, emancipation, modernity, neglect, poverty-inequality, racism, slavery, slaves, socialism, theory, theory-vs-practice, time-interview