The colored people of this country know and understand the white people better than the white people know and understand them.

Labor is the fabled magician's wand, the philosophers stone, and the cap of good fortune.

At a very early age I began to thump on the piano alone, and it was not long before I was able to pick out a few tunes? I also learned the names of the notes in both clefs, but I preferred not be hampered by notes.

O Black and unknown bards of long ago, How came your lips to touch the sacred fire?

Shortly after this I was made a member of the boys choir, it being found that I possessed a clear, strong soprano voice. I enjoyed the singing very much.

My appearance was always good and my ability to play on the piano, especially ragtime, which was then at the height of its vogue, made me a welcome guest.

A great wave of humiliation and shame swept over me. Shame that I belonged to a race that could be so dealt with; and shame for my country, that it, the great example of democracy to the world, should be the only civilized, if not the only state on earth, where a human being would be burned alive.