“There is many a white man less fortunate and less well equipped than I am. In fact, I have never been able to discover that there was anything disgraceful in being a colored man. But I have often found it inconvenient – in America.”

People sometimes ask me if I would not give anything to be white, I answer, in the words of the song, most emphatically, ‘No.’ How do I know what I might be if I were a white man?

I have never been able to discover anything disgraceful in being a colored man. But I have often found it inconvenient – in America.

I named all my children after flowers. There’s Lillie and Rose and my son, Artificial.

I might be a sand-hog, burrowing away and losing my health for $8 a day. I might be a street-car conductor at $12 or $15 a week.