Quotation of the Day

Oppression of the unfortunate makes one weak.

Booker T. Washington (1856-1915)

Context from: Up From Slavery

CHAPTER 11

MAKING THEIR BEDS BEFORE THEY COULD LIE ON THEM

This first visit which General Armstrong made to Tuskegee gave me an opportunity to get an insight into his character such as I had not before had. I refer to his interest in the Southern white people. Before this I had had the thought that General Armstrong, having fought the Southern white man, rather cherished a feeling of bitterness toward the white South, and was interested in helping only the coloured man there. But this visit convinced me that I did not know the greatness and the generosity of the man. I soon learned, by his visits to the Southern white people, and from his conversations with them, that he was as anxious about the prosperity and the happiness of the white race as the black. He cherished no bitterness against the South, and was happy when an opportunity offered for manifesting his sympathy. In all my acquaintance with General Armstrong I never heard him speak, in public or in private, a single bitter word against the white man in the South. From his example in this respect I learned the lesson that great men cultivate love, and that only little men cherish a spirit of hatred. I learned that assistance given to the weak makes the one who gives it strong; and that oppression of the unfortunate makes one weak.

Read more: http://etc.usf.edu/lit2go/92/up-from-slavery/1618/chapter-11-making-their-beds-before-they-could-lie-on-them/

The trick is always to look at what we are doing today as if we were someplace in the future looking back and figure out what the oppressions and the injustices are that we are committing today and to get them out of our lives.

Yeah. Moreover oppression of the unfortunate doesn't make one fortunate...