W.E.B. Du Bois: “Is this the life you grudge us, O knightly America?”

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

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?

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.