But the color of a Negro's skin makes him easily recognizable, makes him suspect, converts him into a defenseless target

We had our own civilization in Africa before we were captured and carried off to this land. We smelted iron, danced, made music and folk poems; we sculpted, worked in glass, spun cotton and wool, wove baskets and cloth. We invented a medium of exchange, mined silver and gold, made pottery and cutlery, we fashioned tools and utensils of brass, bronze, ivory, quartz, and granite. We had our own literature, our own systems of law, religion, medicine, science, and education.

Men can starve from a lack of self-realization as much as they can from a lack of bread.

Don't leave inferences to be drawn when evidence can be presented.

What could I dream of that had the barest possibility of coming true? I could think of nothing. And, slowly, it was upon exactly that nothingness that my mind began to dwell, that constant sense of wanting without having, of being hated without reason.

I was not leaving the south to forget the south, but so that some day I might understand it

It was not a matter of believing or disbelieving what I read, but of feeling something new, of being affected by something that made the look of the world different.