Opportunity is important but exertion is indispensable.

It is better to be part of a great whole than to be the whole of a small part.

...of whom I can say with a grateful heart, 'I was hungry, and he gave me meat; I was thirsty, and he gave me drink; I was a stranger, and he took me in.'

Power and those in control concede nothing ... without a demand. Hey never have and never will... Each and every one of us must keep demanding, must keep fighting, must keep thundering, must keep plowing, must keep on keeping things struggling, must speak out and speak up until justice is served because where there is no justice there is no peace.

Poverty, ignorance and degradation are the combined evils, these constitute the social disease of the free colored people of the US.

To drag a man in fetters into the grand illuminated temple of liberty, and call upon him to join you in joyous anthems, were inhuman mockery and sacrilegious irony.

What I ask for the Negro is not benevolence, not pity, not sympathy, but simply justice.