W.E.B. Du Bois: “About us beats the sea--the sail-flecked, restless sea, humming its tune about our flying keel, unmindful of the voices…”

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

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.

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