Luís Gama Quotes

A Província de São Paulo, “Questão forense”, October 14, 1880. Source: Defendeu escravizados: O inestimável legado do jornalista Luiz Gama.

I am not a legal scholar, I am not a doctor, I am not a law graduate, I have no pretensions to celebrity, nor am I in the position to occupy a position in the judiciary; I am, however, disgusted by the notorious incongruity of which, with undauntled arrogance, eminent magistrates who have as their office the study of laws, and as their obligation the just application of them.

A Província de São Paulo, Carta a Ferreira de Menezes, December 18, 1880. Source: Leia artigo de Luiz Gama publicado há mais de 140 anos nas páginas do Estadão.

Correio Paulistano, November 10, 1871. Source: Defendeu escravizados: O inestimável legado do jornalista Luiz Gama.

If someday (...) the respectable judges of Brazil, forgetful of the respect they owe the law, and of the indispensable duties they have contracted before morality and the nation, corrupted by venality or the deleterious action of power, abandoning the sacrosanct cause of law (...) failing in due justice to the unfortunate ones who suffer unjust slavery, I, on my own account, (...) and under my sole responsibility, will advise and promote, not insurrection, which is a crime, but "resistance", which is a civic virtue.

Gazeta da Tarde, [Carta a Ferreira de Menezes], January 07, 1881. Source: Defendeu escravizados: O inestimável legado do jornalista Luiz Gama.

Under the law, the crime of murder perpetrated by the slave on the person of the master is justifiable

Subtitle of the article "Aos escravocratas" written by Raul Pompeia. Newspaper "ÇA IRA", August 19, 1882. Source: Benedito, Mouzar (2011). Luiz Gama - o libertador de escravos e sua mãe libertária, Luíza Mahin 2 ed. São Paulo: Expressão Popular. Page: 59. ISBN 85-7743-004-9.

A law is a social monument, a page of history, a lesson in ethnography, a reason for state.

The day of happiness will be the memorable day of the emancipation of the people, and the day of emancipation will be the one when the great are put down and the small raised up; when there are neither masters nor slaves; bosses nor subordinates; powerful nor weak; oppressors nor oppressed; but when the vast Brazil is called the common homeland of Brazilian citizens or United States of Brazil.

Luiz Gama is the only intellectual, the only black Brazilian personality of the 19th century to have lived the experience of slavery. This is already a fact that makes him unique in the panorama of Brazil in the 19th century".

Historian Lígia Fonseca Ferreira. Source: Os desafios de Luiz Gama na luta dos negros por justiça.