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 \^ 
 
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 QUOTATIONS 
 
 FROM 
 
 MEGR© AUTHORS 
 
 
 
 ARRANGED BY 
 
 
 KATHERINE D. TILLMAN 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 COPYRIGHTED 1921 
 
 
 
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 amS. KATHESTNE D. TILLMAN 
 
QUOTATIONS FROM NEGRO 
 AUTHORS 
 
 "We men who gather up the fragments of 
 our labors, acts, achievements, sayings, oddi- 
 ties, peculiarities, fun, speeches, lectures, 
 poems, war struggles, bravery, degradation 
 and sufferings, and preserve them for the 
 future now while they are in reach will stand 
 out as heroes in the days to come." 
 
 — Bishop Henry M. Turner. 
 
 "But one, amid the strife, collected, calm, 
 
 Patient and resolute stood firm and trod 
 The deck defiant of the storm, 
 
 Guiding the ship's course like some ancient 
 god. 
 And high upon the scroll of endless fame. 
 In diamond letters, flashes Lincoln's name. 
 
 T. Thomas Furtune. 
 
 "In Memory's chain of golden links, 
 
 One link of thine I claim 
 On Friendship's page in letters clear, 
 
 Will e'er appear thy name." 
 
 — ^Virgie Whitsett 
 
 "The dead, the living, — all a glorious host, 
 A cloud of witnesses around us press; 
 
 Shall we like them stand faithful at our post, 
 Or weakly yield unequal to the stress?" 
 
 — Charlotte F. Grimke. 
 
"Life is a fighting game against the powers 
 of sin." — George M. Tiliman. 
 
 "It is all very well to say that every one 
 will live till his time comes. You need to re- 
 member that your time is like India rubber; 
 you can stretch it or shorten it by the amount 
 of pull you put upon it." — H. T. Kealing. 
 
 "Morning hours are the wings of the day, 
 and wings are suggestive of elasticity, buoy- 
 ancy, hopefulness, ambition, aspiration." 
 
 Julian C. Caldwell. 
 
 "We must war eternally with ignorance, 
 mankind's ceaseless foe." — W. T. Vernon. 
 
 "There is no lesson that Negro boys and 
 girls so need to master as that of the neces- 
 sity of work, of the hell of idleness. Work in 
 the face of obstacles and adversity is the 
 school that makes men, women and angels." 
 
 W. E. B. Dubois. 
 
 "You will never convince anyone of the 
 essential equality of the races except by the 
 pn-ictical argument of achievement." — Charles 
 W. Chesnutt, 
 
 "When I f m gone above me rai.se, 
 
 No lofty stone perfect in human handicraft 
 Say this of me and I shall be content, 
 
That in the Master's work my life was spent 
 Say not that I was either great or good, 
 But Mary-like she has done what she could." 
 
 — Josephine D. Heard 
 
 "Can x^.fric's rnuse forgetful prove, 
 Or can such friendship fail to move 
 
 A tender human heart. 
 Immortal friendship laurel-crowned 
 The smilirlg graces all surround 
 With heavenly art." — Phyllis Wheatley. 
 
 "A v>^oman must labor to be dressed with 
 purity, crowned with wisdom, and adorned 
 with the jewels of patience and persever- 
 ance."— M. F. Pitts. 
 
 "The man who is strong to fight his fight 
 
 And whose will no front can daunt 
 If the Truth be truth and the right be right 
 
 Is the man the ages want. 
 Though he fall and die in grim defeat 
 
 Yet he has not fled the strife, 
 And the house of earth will seem more sweet 
 
 For the perfume of his life." — Paul Lau- 
 rence Dunbar. 
 
 "Upon the nation's blackboard before their 
 united intelligence Africa and Africans shall 
 yet rewrite their own history and the world 
 shall yet recognize them as brethren." 
 
 — William Sampson Brooks. 
 
"The black man must write for the black 
 men and give them proper or mental rank 
 among the historic peoples of the earth." 
 
 Charles Henry Parrish 
 
 "He had no great accumulations, but left 
 
 posterity a rich heritage of melody." — Hallie 
 
 Q. Brown. 
 
 "Our boys and girls must stand, . 
 
 xA.s giants in the land 
 
 With torches high, 
 Come, rouse from sluggard sleep. 
 And help the vigil keep; 
 What tho' the clouds hang low 
 
 There's blue beyond. — Eva Carter Buckner 
 
 "The Negro is neither angelic nor diabolical 
 but merely human and should be treated as 
 such. — Kelly Miller. 
 
 "One can only guide genius or talent where 
 it exists to surmount difficulties and how to 
 work to the best advantage." — Samuel Coler- 
 
 "And we with sable faces pent 
 
 Move with the Vanguard line 
 Shod with a faith that Springtime keeps, 
 
 And all the stars enshrine." 
 
 — Georgia D. Johnson. 
 
"Disease and death draw no color line." 
 
 — George Haynes. 
 
 "The liberators of humanity, Jesus, Paul, 
 Tindaie, Luther, Wesley, Allen, Garrison and 
 Lincoln were all men of splendid and indis- 
 scribable loyalty to truth." — A. B. Cooper. 
 "To realize the best for yourself consecrate 
 yourself to something outside of yourself." 
 
 — R. R. Wright, Jr. 
 
 "Hail land of the Palmetto and the Pine, 
 From Blue Ridge Mountain down to Mexic's 
 sea; 
 Sweet with magnolia and cape jessamine, 
 And thrilled with song-thou art the land 
 for me."— Albery A. Whitman. 
 
 Be strong my son, the weakling never can 
 secure the thing for which he strives, for he 
 who rests, and there supinely waits for some 
 chance guerdon of reward but waits in vain. 
 Be strong! Be strong!— B. B. Church. 
 
 Symbolic mother, we thy myriad sons 
 
 Pounding our stubborn hearts on Freedom's 
 bars, 
 
 Clutching our birthright, fight with faces set, 
 Visioning the stars.— Jessie Fauset. 
 
 "Your race is calling you to carry on its 
 good name and with that, the voice of hu- 
 
8 _____„____ 
 
 inanity is calling to us all." — Allice D. Nelson 
 
 Clean life, serene life, 
 
 Life that knows no shame, 
 Life that's writ in service 
 
 On the scroll of fame. — Joseph S. Cotter. 
 
 I ask no rich reward, I only crave 
 A spirit singing to the lashing rain, 
 
 A lifted heart that never knows defeat, 
 God help me to be strong: God make me 
 brave. — ^Anna M. Henderson. 
 
 We shall prosper in proportion as we learn 
 to dignify and glorify common labor and put 
 brains and skill into the common occupations 
 of life." — Booker T. Washington. 
 
 "The women of a race should be its pride. 
 We glory in the strength our mothers had, 
 
 We glory that this strength was not denied 
 To labor nobly, bravely and be glad. — Paul 
 
 Lauence Dunbar. 
 
 All I ask for the Negro is fair play. Give 
 him this and I have no fear for his future." 
 
 — Frederick Douglass. 
 
 "A race like an individual, lifts itself by 
 lifting others up." — ^Booker T. Washington. 
 
 "The distance of years lends not only en- 
 chantment but sobriety to the view." 
 
 — William Pickens. 
 
"The price of liberty cannot come too high 
 nor its safeguards be maintained with a cour- 
 age and vigilance too sleepless and unyield- 
 ing." — Reverdy C. Ransom. 
 
 'In every walk of life prove yourself a 
 hundred per cent patriotic and useful." 
 
 Bishop Henry Blanton Parks. 
 
 Truth has never been the exclusive inher- 
 itance of any one nation." — R. R. Downs. 
 
 "We can reach our highest attainment, ony 
 in so far as we stoop to reach the man beneath 
 us." — Emily Christmas Kinch. 
 
 "The work of the colored woman's Club is 
 to teach the race the lesson of self-control 
 revolutionizing communities and bringing 
 about their moral and civic salvation." 
 
 Mrs. Booker T. Washington 
 
 "You will never come into j^our own until 
 you put at the service of the Almighty all of 
 your powers-mind, body and soul. You will 
 never know what happiness is until you have 
 a large share in making others happy." 
 
 Nannie H. Burroughs. 
 
 "We realize that to day is the psychological 
 moment for us as women to show our true 
 worth, and prove that the Negro woman of 
 
10 
 
 to-day measures up to those strong sainted 
 women of our race who passed through the 
 fire of slavery and its galling remembrances. 
 
 —Mary B. Talbert. 
 
 "We must have trained guardians for the 
 home whether they be natural mothers or 
 selected ones." — Mrs. S. Joe Brown. 
 
 "A landless race is like a ship without a 
 rudder." — Booker T. Washington. 
 
 "I have learned that success is to be measured 
 not so much by the position one has reached 
 in Life, as by the obstacles which he has over- 
 come while trying to succeed." 
 
 "We trace the power of Death from tomb to 
 
 tomb, 
 And his are all the ages yet to come." 
 
 —Phyllis Wheately. 
 
 "Still wondrous youth each noble path pursue 
 On deathless glories fix thine ardent view." 
 
 —Phyllis Wheately. 
 
 In Flanders fields where poppies blow, 
 
 Beneath the crosses row on row, 
 We blacks an endless vigil keep, 
 
 Yea we though dead can never sleep. 
 
 Ingratitude has made it so. 
 "Africa, long ages sleeping, 
 
 Oh my Motherland awake, 
 
11 
 
 In the East the clouds glow crimson, 
 With the new dawn that is breaking, 
 And its golden glory fills tthe western skies. 
 
 —Claude McKay 
 
 "Since Poets have told of sunsets 
 
 What is left for me to tell? 
 Can only say that I saw the day press 
 
 Crimson lips to horizon gray. — Effie Lee. 
 
 Sky, seas, and mountains wonders are 
 
 And chartless winds or fierce or mild, 
 But still I think God's masterpiece, 
 
 Is just a little child. — Ethel Caution. 
 
12 
 
 QUOTATIOxNS FROM KATHEEINE D. 
 
 TiLLMAN. 
 
 "Foi Oh how much of happiness, 
 
 A humble hut can hold, 
 Such joys as misers cannot buy, 
 
 With all their hoarded gold." 
 
 "Say not that you have no chance, 
 
 Read the Negro's thrilling past, 
 Sse what he has done and dared, 
 
 Then go on to conquest vast." 
 
 "We call our visions madness, 
 
 And cast our ideals away, 
 And are ever less than we should be, 
 
 Had we had our visions stay." 
 
 "John Brown was hanged for Freedom's cause 
 
 By man-made freedom-hating laws, 
 But he had won his God's applause. 
 
 And where his martyr's blood was spilled, 
 The seed of freedom were instilled 
 
 And men with new-born courage filled." 
 
 "On through the long night of oppression - 
 
 and wrong, | 
 
 On with a smile and on with a song, | 
 
 Where darkness is deepest then follows the | 
 
 dawn; | 
 
 Then soul of my soul go upward and on. ': 
 
 "So rich so pure her jeweled womanhood 
 So consecrated to her fellow's good 
 
13 
 
 That on and on, 
 Shall shine her life in other happier spheres, 
 
 Undimmed for'er by mortal ills and tears 
 Through years unborn." 
 
 "Ring out the Bells of gladsome Easter time, 
 
 In celebration of event divine, 
 With resurrection joys the music swells, 
 
 While multitudes now seek the Saviour's 
 shrine." 
 
 In workman's shop or at the "Front" 
 
 The Negro soldier does his stunt 
 Proving a patriot,. loyal, true 
 
 To his country's flag "red, v/hite and bliv3." 
 
 "For do you not think, it may be the homes 
 v/e build for eternity, 
 Are built oi' the kindness, cheer and love. 
 Our lives send on to the heav'n above? 
 
 "I serve my Lord the King, 
 
 No greater post I ask, 
 No matter where for Him I serve, 
 
 So honor crown thte task." 
 
 "Give if you like wreaths for the dead but 
 
 Long as I on earth shall tread, 
 And grief the human heart shall bow, 
 
 I'd rather give my flov/ers now." 
 
 "Our times are in God's hands, 
 
 Our lives are in His care, 
 The Old Year served from Him, 
 
14 
 
 Our heaven allotted share, 
 And after all we had more sunshine than of 
 shade. 
 
 So welcome the New Year with hearts 
 with courage lade." 
 
 "Within the church that happy Christmas day 
 Where holly berries on the chancel lay 
 
 The little children carolled forth the praise 
 Of Christ the Prince of Peace, Ancient of 
 Days." 
 
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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
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