A slave society will not endure: By Barbara Jean Pollard Taylor

Black Buzz News Service
February 6, 2010
Archives of USA TODAY
Pittsburgh Pa.

The below article titled "A slave society will not endure " appeared in the USA Today on June 4 ,1986. The article was written by Barbara Jean Pollard Taylor a retired educator currently living in Chicago,Illinois.

A slave society will not endure

Jefferson City , Mo-
History tells us no group of people will long remain submissive to the domination of another.The story of the Roman Empire is replete with slave revolts. Nat Turner and John Brown are well known to students of U.S. history. History does repeat itself , and we who do not learn from it are doomed to repeat its mistakes.
A continuing source of cheap labor has allowed the building of great national treasures and the apparently smooth functioning of the governing class. It was the key to the great pyramids of Egypt , the Nazi war machine ,the great plantations like Monticello and Mount Vernon.
Pharaohs ,charismatic dictators even our Founding Fathers convinced themselves that another race or nation was less human themselves.
They were wedded to the belief that these races or nations should be dominated and were not to think for themselves , plan their own destinies.
It was an easy next step to the belief that these less-than-human beings could be trained to provide for the needs and wants of the governing class.
These societies did not endure.
The average white South African cannot easily give up a status and level of living that he has enjoyed for centuries. He has come to believe his status is his right. This is a castle built of cards ,which must collapse , at the first strong breeze.The South African way of life is very fragile system that arbitrarily categorizes , restricts ,inhibits ,and denies the personhood of its citizens.
History has shown that a society built on the repression of groups of its citizenry is doomed to fall. Living ,breathing thinking man will not be content to remain enslaved. Inter tribal clashes among blacks and coloreds in South Africa will not continue. Man will not continue to self-destruct. Man will be free , and in his struggle to be free will attract others of like mind to his cause.
We in the global family of man do band together in crises to help each other. Indeed ,we are the world- in South Carolina , South America , South Africa. We will not stand idly by and allow our brothers to starve , to be shot at , to be oppressed by an unjust system.

Barbara Pollard Taylor is a
director of the National Black
Political Caucus.