"It is true that Mr. Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, after which there was a commitment to give 40 acres and a mule. That's where the argument, to this day, of reparations starts. We never got the 40 acres. We went all the way to Herbert Hoover, and we never got the 40 acres. We didn't get the mule. So we decided we'd ride this donkey as far as it would take us"
About this Quote
The line about "going all the way to Herbert Hoover" is doing heavy rhetorical work. It compresses decades of Black political patience into a single, almost weary sentence: we waited through administrations, we played by the rules, we kept faith with the state. Hoover, a shorthand for pre-New Deal austerity and indifference, marks the point at which hope in federal remedy curdles into hard-nosed strategy.
Then Sharpton flips to electoral pragmatism: "we decided we'd ride this donkey". The donkey is both a literal jab at the Democratic Party and a confession of constrained choice. It's not romantic loyalty; it's leverage-seeking. The subtext is blunt: Black voters have long been treated as a dependable base without receiving dependable returns, so support becomes transactional, even sardonic. By ending on humor, Sharpton softens the fury just enough to make it repeatable - a joke you can chant at a rally that still carries the bite of a grievance America prefers to file under "ancient history."
Quote Details
| Topic | Justice |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Sharpton, Al. (2026, January 16). It is true that Mr. Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, after which there was a commitment to give 40 acres and a mule. That's where the argument, to this day, of reparations starts. We never got the 40 acres. We went all the way to Herbert Hoover, and we never got the 40 acres. We didn't get the mule. So we decided we'd ride this donkey as far as it would take us. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/it-is-true-that-mr-lincoln-signed-the-138107/
Chicago Style
Sharpton, Al. "It is true that Mr. Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, after which there was a commitment to give 40 acres and a mule. That's where the argument, to this day, of reparations starts. We never got the 40 acres. We went all the way to Herbert Hoover, and we never got the 40 acres. We didn't get the mule. So we decided we'd ride this donkey as far as it would take us." FixQuotes. January 16, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/it-is-true-that-mr-lincoln-signed-the-138107/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"It is true that Mr. Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, after which there was a commitment to give 40 acres and a mule. That's where the argument, to this day, of reparations starts. We never got the 40 acres. We went all the way to Herbert Hoover, and we never got the 40 acres. We didn't get the mule. So we decided we'd ride this donkey as far as it would take us." FixQuotes, 16 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/it-is-true-that-mr-lincoln-signed-the-138107/. Accessed 8 Feb. 2026.
