W.E.B. Du Bois: “Only faith in humanity will lead the world to rise above its present color prejudice.”

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

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.

Such an assumption is the arrogance of peoples irreverent toward Time and ignorant of the deeds of men.

So long as the world stands meekly dumb before such questions, shall this nation proclaim its ignorance and unhallowed prejudices by denying freedom of opportunity to those who brought the Sorrow Songs to the Seats of the Mighty?