When I found I had crossed that line, I looked at my hands to see if I was the same person. There was such a glory over everything. – Harriet Tubman, on her first escape from slavery, 1845

American means white, and Africanist people struggle to make the term applicable to themselves with ethnicity and hyphen after hyphen after hyphen. – Toni Morrison, Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination, 1992

I felt that one had better die fighting against injustice than to die like a dog or rat in a trap. I had already determined to sell my life as dearly as possible if attacked. I felt if I could take one lyncher with me, this would even up the score a little bit. – Ida B. Wells

In all things that are purely social we can be as separate as the fingers, yet one as the hand in all things essential to mutual progress. – Booker T. Washington