Friends, to me for years St. Louis represented a city of fear... humiliation... misery and terror... A city where in the eyes of the white man a Negro should know his place and had better stay in it.

One dance had made me the most famous colored woman in the world.

A violinist had a violin, a painter his palette. All I had was myself. I was the instrument that I must care for.

The things we truly love stay with us always, locked in our hearts as long as life remains.

Is that what they call a vocation, what you do with joy as if you had fire in your heart, the devil in your body?

We've got to show that blacks and whites are treated equally in the army. Otherwise, what's the point of waging war on Hitler?

The hate directed against the colored people here in St. Louis has always given me a sad feeling... How can you expect the world to believe in you and respect your preaching of democracy when you yourself treat your colored brothers as you do?