W.E.B. Du Bois: “Is not the world wide enough for two colors, for many little shinings of the sun?”

The silently growing assumption of this age is that the probation of races is past, and that the backward races of to-day are of proven inefficiency and not worth the saving.

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?

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