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Children's talent to endure stems from their ignorance of alternatives.

Maya Angelou

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

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Angelou, Maya. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. Random House, 1969.

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You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I'll rise.

Maya Angelou

Still I Rise

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Angelou, Maya. "And Still I Rise." And Still I Rise. Random House, 1978, I. 21.

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No hour is ever eternity, but it has its right to weep.

Zora Neale Hurston

Their Eyes Were Watching God

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Hurston, Zora Neale. Their Eyes Were Watching God. J. B. Lippincott Company, 1937, ch. 19.

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Time moves slowly, but passes quickly.

Alice Walker

The Color Purple

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Walker, Alice. The Color Purple. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1982.

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It’s one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself, to forgive.

Maya Angelou

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Angelou, Maya. "Oprah Talks to Maya Angelou." O, The Oprah Magazine, May 2013.

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She is a friend of my mind. She gather me, man. The pieces I am, she gather them and give them back to me in all the right order.

Toni Morrison

Beloved

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Morrison, Toni. Beloved. Alfred A. Knopf, 1987.

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History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again.

Maya Angelou

Read On the Pulse of Morning at poets.org

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Angelou, Maya. "On the Pulse of Morning." First Inauguration of President Bill Clinton. 20 Jan. 1993, US Capitol Building, Washington, DC, USA.

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The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line.

W.E.B. Du Bois

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Du Bois, William Edward Burghardt. "To the Nations of the World." Pan-African Conference. 25 July 1900, London, England, UK. Address.

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It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one's self through the eyes of others... One feels his twoness-an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivngs; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.

W.E.B. Du Bois

The Souls of Black Folk

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Du Bois, William Edward Burghardt. The Souls of Black Folk: Essays and Sketches. A. C. McClurg & Co., 1903, ch. 1.

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Du Bois, William Edward Burghardt. The Souls of Black Folk, edited by Brent Hayes Edwards. Oxford University Press, 2009, ch. 1.

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Anyone who has ever struggled with poverty knows how extremely expensive it is to be poor.

James Baldwin

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Baldwin, James. "Fifth Avenue, Uptown; A Letter from Harlem." Esquire, July 1960.

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Ships at a distance have every man's wish on board. For some they come in with the tide. For others they sail forever on the horizon, never out of sight, never landing until the Watcher turns his eyes away in resignation, his dreams mocked to death by Time. That is the life of men.

Zora Neale Hurston

Their Eyes Were Watching God

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Hurston, Zora Neale. Their Eyes Were Watching God. J. B. Lippincott Company, 1937, ch. 1.

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Gods always behave like the people who make them.

Zora Neale Hurston

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Hurston, Zora Neale. Tell My Horse. J.B. Lippincott Co., 1938, ch. 15.

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I am a Negro:
Black as the night is black,
Black like the depths of my Africa.

Langston Hughes

Read Negro at poets.org

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Hughes, Langston. "Negro." The Weary Blues. Alfred A. Knopf, 1926, I. 1.

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Hughes, Langston. "Proem." The Weary Blues. Alfred A. Knopf, 2015, I. 1.

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The Negro folk-song-the rhythmic cry of the slave-stands today not simply as the sole American music, but as the most beautiful expression of human experience born this side the seas. It has been neglected, it has been, and is, half despised, and above all it has been persistently mistaken and misunderstood; but notwithstanding, it still remains as the singular spiritual heritage of the nation and the greatest gift of the Negro people.

W.E.B. Du Bois

The Souls of Black Folk

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Du Bois, William Edward Burghardt. The Souls of Black Folk: Essays and Sketches. A. C. McClurg & Co., 1903, ch. 14.

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Du Bois, William Edward Burghardt. The Souls of Black Folk, edited by Brent Hayes Edwards. Oxford University Press, 2009, ch. 14.

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Money, it turned out, was exactly like sex, you thought of nothing else if you didn't have it and thought of other things if you did.

James Baldwin

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Baldwin, James. "The Black Boy Looks at the White Boy." Esquire, 1 May 1961.

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The dark world is going to submit to its present treatment just as long as it must and not one moment longer.

W.E.B. Du Bois

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Du Bois, William Edward Burghardt. "The Souls of White Folk." Darkwater: Voices from Within the Veil. Harcourt, Brace And Howe, 1920.

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Du Bois, William Edward Burghardt. "The Souls of White Folk." Darkwater: Voices from Within the Veil, edited by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Oxford University Press, 2014.

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Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them. They must, they have no other models.

James Baldwin

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Baldwin, James. "Fifth Avenue, Uptown; A Letter from Harlem." Esquire, July 1960.

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I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don't notice it… People think pleasing God is all God care about. But any fool living in the world can see it always trying to please us back.

Alice Walker

The Color Purple

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Walker, Alice. The Color Purple. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1982.

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Have you ever found God in church? I never did. I just found a bunch of folks hoping for him to show. Any God I ever felt in church I brought in with me. And I think all the other folks did too. They come to church to share God, not find God.

Alice Walker

The Color Purple

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Walker, Alice. The Color Purple. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1982.

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Goddammit, look! We live here and they live there. We black and they white. They got things and we ain't. They do things and we can't. It's just like living in jail.