Melting pot Harlem-Harlem of honey and chocolate and caramel and rum and vinegar and lemon and lime and gall. Dusky dream Harlem rumbling into a nightmare tunnel where the subway from the Bronx keeps right on downtown.

Let America be America again. Let it be the dream it used to be.

We Negro writers, just by being black, have been on the blacklist all our lives. Censorship for us begins at the color line.

Most musicians remain poor. But the music that they make, even if it does not bring them millions, gives millions of people happiness.

I've been scared and battered. My hopes the wind done scattered. Snow has friz me, Sun has baked me, Looks like between 'em they done Tried to make me Stop laughin', stop lovin', stop livin'-- But I don't care! I'm still here!

Yet the ivory gods, And the ebony gods, And the gods of diamond-jade, Are only silly puppet gods That people themselves Have made.-

Life is a big sea full of many fish. I let down my nets and pulled. I'm still pulling.