W.E.B. Du Bois: “Nevertheless, he struggled hopefully on, and seemed to see at last some glimmering of dawn.”

Let the ears of a guilty people tingle with truth, and seventy millions sigh for the righteousness which exalteth nations, in this drear day when human brotherhood is mockery and a snare.

Hear my cry, O God the Reader; vouchsafe that this my book fall not still-born into the world wilderness.

Around us the history of the land has centred for thrice a hundred years; out of the nation’s heart we have called all that was best to throttle and subdue all that was worst; fire and blood, prayer and sacrifice, have billowed over this…

But whichever it is, the meaning is always clear: that sometime, somewhere, men will judge men by their souls and not by their skins.