The speed of the legs, the dexterity of the body, the grace of the swing, the elusiveness of the slide – these are the features that make Americans everywhere forget the last syllable of a man’s last name or the pigmentation of his skin.
I don’t care if I was a ditch-digger at a dollar a day, I’d want to do my job better than the fellow next to me. I’d want to be the best at whatever I do.
I cannot face my God much longer knowing that his black creatures are held separate and distinct from his white creatures in the game that has given me all that I can call my own.
I find fault with my children because I like them and I want them to go places – uprightness and strength and courage and civil respect and anything that affects the probabilities of failure on the part of those that are closest to me, that concerns me – I find fault.
