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The Story of Disability Justice

Slaveholder George Fitzhugh argues that enslavement offers care to Black people with disabilities.

Date: 1857

The Story of Disability Justice
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Fitzhugh states: "To protect the weak, we must first enslave them." He compares the Southern economic system with the Northern system, explaining that Northern workers, when hurt or disabled through work, are "discarded," whereas enslaved Black people, he says, are "protected" for the rest of their lives. This continues to promote the false notion that slavery is a system of maintaining health and providing care.