“This past, the Negro’s past,…this endless struggle to achieve and reveal and confirm a human identity,…yet contains, for all its horror, something very beautiful. I do not mean to be sentimental about suffering—…but people who cannot suffer can never grow up, can never discover who they are….It demands great spiritual resilience not to hate the hater whose foot is on your neck, and an even greater miracle of perception and charity not to teach your children to hate….I am proud of these people not because of their color but because of their intelligence and their spiritual force and beauty. This country should be proud of them, too, but, alas, not many people in this country even know of their existence. And the reason for this ignorance is a knowledge of the role these people played—and play—in American life would reveal more about America to Americans than Americans wish to know.” James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time presented in Conclusion: Legacies of the Cross and the Lynching Tree, Dr. James H. Cone, The Cross and the Lynching Tree, 2011
“Signed…An Educated Brother!”
aneducatedbrother 