We younger Negro artists who create now intend to express our individual dark-skinned selves without fear or shame. If white people are pleased, we are glad. If they are not, it doesn't matter. We know we are beautiful. And ugly too. The tom-tom cries and the tom-tom laughs. If colored people are pleased, we are glad. If they are not, it doesn't matter either. We build our temples for tomorrow, strong as we know how, and we stand on top of the mountain, free within ourselves.

Life is a system of half-truths and lies, Opportunistic, convenient evasion.

Why should I want to be white? I am a Negro - and beautiful!

Humor is laughing at what you haven't got when you ought to have it.

Good morning, daddy! Ain't you heard The boogie-woogie rumble Of a dream deferred? • • • • You think It's a happy beat?

This is the mountain standing in the way of any true Negro art in America - this urge within the race toward whiteness, the desire to pour racial individuality into the mold of American standardization, and to be as little Negro and as much American as possible.

How still, How strangely still The water is today, It is not good For water To be so still that way. ~ "Sea Calm