W.E.B. Du Bois: “I have seen a land right merry with the sun, where children sing, and rolling hills lie like passioned women wanton with…”

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?

Our song, our toil, our cheer, and warning have been given to this nation in blood-brotherhood.

Actively we have woven ourselves with the very warp and woof of this nation,—we fought their battles, shared their sorrow, mingled our blood with theirs, and generation after generation have pleaded with a headstrong, careless people to…

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