We all should rise, above the clouds of ignorance, narrowness, and selfishness. - Booker T. Washington

The study of art that does not result in making the strong less willing to suppress the weak means little.

In many cases it seemed to me that the ignorance of my race was being used as a tool with which to help white men into office, and that there was an element in the North which wanted to punish the Southern white men by forcing the Negro into positions over the heads of the Southern whites.

In the earlier days of freedom almost every coloured man who learned to read would receive “a call to preach” within a few days after he began reading.