"If we had been allowed to participate in the vital process of America's national growth, what would have been the textures of our lives, the pattern of our traditions, the routine of our customs, the state of our arts, the code of our laws, the function of our government!... We black folk say that America would have been stronger and greater."
Richard Wright Twelve Million Black Voices [1940]
Familiar Quotations Fifteenth and 125th Anniversary Edition John Bartlett


















