“It is the growing custom to narrow control, concentrate power, disregard and disenfranchise the public; and assuming that certain powers by divine right of money-raising or by sheer assumption, have the power to do as they think best without consulting the wisdom of mankind.”

Unfortunately there was one thing that the white South feared more than Negro dishonesty, ignorance, and incompetency, and that was Negro honesty, knowledge, and efficiency.

For education among all kinds of men always has had, and always will have, an element of danger and revolution, of dissatisfaction and discontent.

I most sincerely doubt if any other race of women could have brought its fineness up through so devilish a fire.

Whether you like it or not the millions are here, and here they will remain. If you do not lift them up, they will pull you down… Education must not simply teach work – it must teach life.

I have loved my work, I have loved people and my play, but always I have been uplifted by the thought that what I have done well will live long and justify my life, that what I have done ill or never finished can now be handed on to others for endless days to be finished, perhaps better than I could have done.

The power of the ballot we need in sheer defense, else what shall save us from a second slavery?

A man does not look behind the door unless he has stood there himself.

Lord, make us mindful of the little things that grow and blossom in these days to make the world beautiful for us.

The favorite device of the devil, ancient and modern, is to force a human being into a more or less artificial class, accuse the class of unnamed and unnameable sin, and then damn any individual in the alleged class, however innocent he may be.

The favorite device of the devil, ancient and modern, is to force a human being into a more or less artificial class, accuse the class of unnamed and unnameable sin, and then damn any individual in the alleged class, however innocent he may be.

The favorite device of the devil, ancient and modern, is to force a human being into a more or less artificial class, accuse the class of unnamed and unnameable sin, and then damn any individual in the alleged class, however innocent he may be.

The time must come when, great and pressing as change and betterment may be, they do not involve killing and hurting people.

The time must come when, great and pressing as change and betterment may be, they do not involve killing and hurting people.

The time must come when, great and pressing as change and betterment may be, they do not involve killing and hurting people.

The emancipation of man is the emancipation of labor and the emancipation of labor is the freeing of that basic majority of workers who are yellow, brown and black.

The emancipation of man is the emancipation of labor and the emancipation of labor is the freeing of that basic majority of workers who are yellow, brown and black.