“The nineteenth century lynching mob cuts off ears, toes, and fingers, strips off flesh, and distributes portions of the body as souvenirs among the crowd.”

The negro has suffered far more from the commission of this crime against the women of his race by white men than the white race has ever suffered through his crimes.

I had already determined to sell my life as dearly as possible if attacked. I felt if I could take one lyncher with me, this would even up the score a little bit.

The doors of churches, hotels, concert halls and reading rooms are alike closed against the Negro as a man, but every place is open to him as a servant.

The emergency no longer existing, lynching gradually disappeared from the West.

The South resented giving the Afro-American his freedom, the ballot box and the Civil Rights Law.

The mob spirit has grown with the increasing intelligence of the Afro-American.

I am only a mouthpiece through which to tell the story of lynching and I have told it so often that I know it by heart. I do not have to embellish; it makes its own way.

A Winchester rifle should have a place of honor in every black home.

Brave men do not gather by thousands to torture and murder a single individual, so gagged and bound he cannot make even feeble resistance or defense.

Virtue knows no color line.

In fact, for all kinds of offenses – and, for no offenses – from murders to misdemeanors, men and women are put to death without judge or jury; so that, although the political excuse was no longer necessary, the wholesale murder of human beings went on just the same.

The way to right wrongs is to turn the light of truth upon them.

Those who commit the murders write the reports.

The only times an Afro-American who was assaulted got away has been when he had a gun and used it in self-defense.

Somebody must show that the Afro-American race is more sinned against than sinning, and it seems to have fallen upon me to do so.

Our country’s national crime is lynching. It is not the creature of an hour, the sudden outburst of uncontrolled fury, or the unspeakable brutality of an insane mob.

While it is unlikely that poetry or art shall eliminate the reality of war in the twenty-first century, it is thrilling to know there remain individuals, and even entire communities,

His [Ben Okri’s] work poses very serious questions for the twenty-first century. Among them:

Still willing to invest in art and poetry’s own uniquely explosive contributions to the great, and small, dramas of human history.

Composers can do things that weren’t allowed in the 17th century. Until we had composers like Igor Stravinsky and Sergei Rachmaninoff to break the rules.

I had casually rented an apartment that cost $75 a month because I expected my writing to pay my way.

The mighty edifice of Government science dominated the scene in the middle of the 20th century as a Gothic cathedral dominated a 13th century landscape. The work of many hands over many years, it universally inspired admiration, wonder and fear.

Aging will create the music of the coming century.

Thus Arm in Arm with thee I dare defy my century into the lists.