Daniel

“But if you start from the idea that Blacks are indeed human, then every commitment to equality after that will be unshakable. And that is the thing to be learned from the 1688 petition. Blacks do not need allies who fight for our inclusion; rather, we need people who are possessed of the basic belief that we are human and that any arguments that depend on rejecting that proposition are tyrannical, unjust, and to be fought.”
― Christopher J. Lebron, Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019

“Life will not answer to reason. And meaning is too young a thing to have much power over it.”
― Richard Powers, The Overstory

“Men talk of the Negro problem. There is no Negro problem,” Douglass declared in 1894, as the shadow of Jim Crow fell across the nation. “The problem is whether the American people have honesty enough, loyalty enough, honor enough, patriotism enough to live up to their Constitution.”
― Ibram X. Kendi, Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019

“The most marvelous, unbelievable thing about Black people in America is that they exist. Every imaginable monstrosity that evil can conjure has been inflicted on this population, yet they have not been extinguished.”
― Michael Harriot, Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019