The Hidden Roots of White Supremacy and the Path to a Shared American Future Quotes

“We white Christians no longer represent the majority of Americans. We are no longer capable of setting the nation’s course by sheer cultural and political dominance. But there are still more than enough of us to decisively derail the future of democracy in America. If we wish to do otherwise, we can no longer disengenuously pretend that democracy and the Doctrine of Discovery are, or ever were, compatible. We can no longer pay tribute to one while benefiting from the other. We must choose. And if we choose democracy, it will require more than just confession by an unflinching few. It will require joining the work already underway to repair the damage done by this malignant cultural legacy. Through that transformative engagement, we might finally illuminate the path that leads to a shared American future.”
― Robert P. Jones, The Hidden Roots of White Supremacy: And the Path to a Shared American Future

“the systematic genocide and removal of Native Americans from their historic lands by white European settler colonists, who acted with the support of soldiers supplied by the government and moral justifications produced by the church.”
― Robert P. Jones, The Hidden Roots of White Supremacy: And the Path to a Shared American Future

“independent journalist I. F. Stone wrote these prescient lines: “The South must become either truly democratic or the base of a new racist and Fascist movement which could threaten the whole country and its institutions.”
― Robert P. Jones, The Hidden Roots of White Supremacy: And the Path to a Shared American Future

“The Defender played an important role in piercing the veil of perpetual servitude that was sold as fate, or even Providence, in the South. “The newspaper carried with it messages, dreams, and hopes and plans,” a Black migrant to Chicago from Alabama explained. “They weren’t just selling a newspaper. They were informing the people of a better world.”
― Robert P. Jones, The Hidden Roots of White Supremacy: And the Path to a Shared American Future

“Over the next few weeks leading up to the 1875 elections, whites engaged in a broad effort to rig the elections, including vigilante violence, voter intimidation, bribery of election officials, and ballot tampering.”
― Robert P. Jones, The Hidden Roots of White Supremacy: And the Path to a Shared American Future

“This Democratic supermajority moved quickly once seated in the state legislature. One of their first moves was to impeach and remove Lieutenant Governor Alexander K. Davis, who was Black. They then set their sights on Republican governor Adelbert Ames, demanding that he resign.”
― Robert P. Jones, The Hidden Roots of White Supremacy: And the Path to a Shared American Future

“Planter bewilderment at the demise of the Confederacy, however, soon gave way to an ironclad resolve to restore the power dynamics of the master-slave hierarchy by other means, using all tools at their disposal: political, religious, social, and economic.”
― Robert P. Jones, The Hidden Roots of White Supremacy: And the Path to a Shared American Future

“its absence from the historical canon of predominantly white academic institutions is testimony to its continued cultural power. While the Doctrine of Discovery has escaped scrutiny by most white scholars and theologians, Indigenous people and African Americans have long been testifying to these Christian roots of white supremacy, while dying from and living with their damaging effects.”
― Robert P. Jones, The Hidden Roots of White Supremacy: And the Path to a Shared American Future

“To invade, search out, capture, vanquish, and subdue all Saracens [Muslims] and pagans whatsoever, and other enemies of Christ wheresoever placed, and the kingdoms, dukedoms, principalities, dominions, possessions, and all movable and immovable goods whatsoever held and possessed by them and to reduce their persons to perpetual slavery.”
― Robert P. Jones, The Hidden Roots of White Supremacy: And the Path to a Shared American Future

“November 22, five months and six days after his arrest on June”
― Robert P. Jones, The Hidden Roots of White Supremacy: And the Path to a Shared American Future