"Racial slavery has shaped virtually every aspect of our nation's history. Slavery provided one of the essential legs upon which modern capitalism was built. Slavery shaped the development of the American political structure, from its peculiar form of federalism to the astonishing, and continuing, disproportional influence of Southern legislators. Today's various racial constructions--whiteness, blackness, and an Other category that persistently renders nonwhites and nonblacks invisible--are obviously rooted in the history of slavery and Jim Crow.
Enslaved Africans and their descendents were and are assigned the impossible role of maintaning stable American race relations. Slaves were instructed on pain of injury not to protest an unhealthy relationship fixed by whites for the benefit of whites. Remarkably, slaves did not obey. They managed to bring on the Civil War; in the process, they destroyed the system of slavery and delivered a more fully realized American democracy."
Robin D.G. Kelley, Foreword in "Remembering Slavery: African Americans Talk About Their Personal Experiences of Slavery and Emancipation"
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