Home > Work > A Young People's History of the United States

A Young People's History of the United States QUOTES

A Young People's History of the United States QUOTES

1 " That myth led ordinary people to believe that they had a voice in government and that government looked out for their interests. It was a way of speaking for the lower and middle classes to get their support when the government needed it. Giving people a choice between two political parties, and letting them choose the slightly more democratic one, was a good way to control them. The leaders of both parties understood that they could keep control of society by making reforms that gave people some of what they wanted—but not too much. The "

― , A Young People's History of the United States

2 " Bacon gave his reasons for the rebellion in a paper called “Declaration of the People.” It blended the frontiersmen’s hatred of the Indians with the common people’s anger toward the rich. Bacon accused the Berkeley government of wrongdoing, including unfair taxes and not protecting the western farmers from the Indians. "

― , A Young People's History of the United States

3 " Imagine the American people united for the first time in a movement for fundamental change. Imagine society’s power taken away from the giant corporations, the military, and the politicians who answer to corporate and military interests. We "

― , A Young People's History of the United States

4 " Rise like lions after slumber In unvanquishable number! Shake your chains to earth, like dew Which in sleep had fallen on you— Ye are many, they are few! "

― , A Young People's History of the United States

5 " Ten thousand people wrote letters to the governor of Utah, protesting the verdict, but Joe Hill was executed by a firing squad. Before he died he wrote to Bill Haywood, another IWW leader, “Don’t waste any time in mourning. Organize.” Socialism, "

― , A Young People's History of the United States

6 " Socialists like Helen Keller did not think suffrage was enough. Blind and deaf, Keller fought for change with her spirit and her pen. In 1911 she wrote, “Our democracy is but a name. We vote? What does that mean? … We choose between Tweedledum and Tweedledee.” Black "

― , A Young People's History of the United States

7 " This money could have paid for health care for everyone and for programs to create jobs for all. Instead of giving out contracts for companies to build bombers and nuclear submarines, the government could have given contracts to nonprofit agencies to hire people to build homes, clean up rivers, and construct public transportation systems. Instead, "

― , A Young People's History of the United States

8 " By the end of the Clinton years, the United States had more than 2 million people in prison—a higher percentage of the population than any other country in the world, except maybe Communist China. Visions "

― , A Young People's History of the United States

9 " But opinion surveys in the 1980s and 1990s showed that Americans favored health care for everyone. They also were in favor of guaranteed jobs, government help for the poor and homeless, military budget cuts, and taxes on the rich. Neither the Republicans nor the Democrats were willing to take these bold steps. What "

― , A Young People's History of the United States

10 " What if citizens organized to demand what the Declaration of Independence promised: a government that protected the equal rights of all to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness? This would call for an economic system that distributed wealth in a thoughtful and humane way. It would mean a culture where young people were not taught to seek success as a mask for greed. Throughout "

― , A Young People's History of the United States

11 " The issues of free trade are complicated, but protestors asked a simple question: Should the health and freedom of ordinary people all over the world be sacrificed so that corporations can make a profit? Tens "

― , A Young People's History of the United States

12 " That hatred we have sown has come back to haunt us in the form of terrorism.… Instead of sending our sons and daughters around the world to kill Arabs so we can have the oil under their sand, we should send them to rebuild their infrastructure, supply clean water, and feed starving children.… In short, we should do good instead of evil. Who would try to stop us? Who would hate us? Who would want to bomb us? That is the truth the American people need to hear. Voices "

― , A Young People's History of the United States

13 " Oil shaped U.S. decisions about the Middle East during both Democratic and Republican presidencies. The administration of President Jimmy Carter, a liberal Democrat, had produced the “Carter Doctrine.” Under this doctrine, the United States claimed the right to defend its interest in Middle Eastern oil “by any means necessary, including military force.” In "

― , A Young People's History of the United States

14 " It launched one worker, Eugene Debs, into a lifetime of activism for labor unions and socialism. Debs was arrested for supporting the strike. Two years later he wrote: The issue is Socialism versus Capitalism. I am for Socialism because I am for humanity. We have been cursed with the reign of gold long enough. Money constitutes no proper basis for civilization. The time has come to regenerate [renew] society—we are on the eve of a universal change. Like "

― , A Young People's History of the United States

15 " The very poor could not be counted on to support the government. They were like the slaves and Indians—invisible most of the time, but frightening to the elite if they started an uprising. Other citizens, though, might support the system. Farmers who owned their land, better-paid laborers, and urban office workers were paid just enough, and flattered just enough, that in a crisis they would be loyal to the system and the upper classes that dominated it. Big "

― , A Young People's History of the United States

16 " Just as African Americans had learned that they did not have enough strength to make good the promises of emancipation, working people learned that they were not united or strong enough to defeat the combination of private wealth and government power. But their fight would continue. "

― , A Young People's History of the United States

17 " Benjamin Franklin wrote in 1753, “When white persons of either sex have been taken prisoners young by the Indians, and lived awhile among them, tho’ ransomed by their Friends, and treated with all imaginable tenderness to prevail with them to stay among the English, yet in a Short time they become disgusted with our manner of life, and the care and pains that are necessary to support it, and take the first good Opportunity of escaping again into the woods, from whence there is no reclaiming them. "

― , A Young People's History of the United States

18 " Emma Goldman. "

― , A Young People's History of the United States

19 " In all, Africa may have lost as many as 5o million human beings to death and slavery during the centuries that we call the beginnings of modern civilization. "

― , A Young People's History of the United States

20 " Only one fear in the American colonies was greater than the fear of black rebellion. That was the fear that whites who were unhappy with the state of things might join with blacks to overthrow the social order. Especially in the early years of slavery, before racism was well established, some white servants were treated as badly as slaves. There was a chance that the two groups might work together. "

― , A Young People's History of the United States