She's Got Those Big Black Eyes With

I Want A Busy Life, A Just Mind, And A Timely Death.

Someone Is Always At My Elbow Reminding Me That I Am The Grand-daughter Of Slaves. It Fails To Register Depression With Me. Slaver Y Is Sixty Years In The Past. The Operation Was Successful And The Patient Is Doing Well, Thank You. The Terrible Struggle That Made Me An American Out Of A Potential Slave Said "on The Line!" The Reconstruction Said "go!" I Am Off To A Flying Start And I Must Not Halt In The Stretch To Look Behind And Weep.

Light Came To Me When I Realized That I Did Not Have To Consider Any Racial Group As A Whole. God Made Them Duck By Duck And That Was The Only Way I Could See Them.

Now, Suppose A Negro Does Something Really Magnificent, And I Glory, Not In The Benefit To Mankind, But In The Fact That The Doer Was A Negro. Must I Not Also Go Hang My Head In Shame When A Member Of My Race Does Something Execrable? . . . The White Race Did Not Go Into A Laboratory And Invent Incandescent Light. That Was Edison. . . . If You Are Under The Impression That Every White Man Is An Edison, Just Look Around A Bit.

But As De Old Folk Always Say, Ah'm Born But Ah Ain't Dead. No Tellin' Whut Ah'm Liable Tuh Do Yet.