Carolina QuotesA great deal of this new freedom rests upon the type of education which the Negro woman will receive. Early emancipation did not concern itself with giving advantages to Negro girls. The domestic realm was her field and no one sought to remove her. Even here, she was not given special training for her tasks. Only those with extraordinary talents were able to break the shackles of bondage. Phyllis Wheatley is to be remembered as an outstanding example of this ability — for through her talents one was able to free herself from house hold cares that devolved upon Negro women and make a contribution in literary art which is never to be forgotten. The years still re-echo her words. “Remember, Christians, Negroes, black as Cain/May be refined, and join the Angelic train”
The 1920s
10 quotations.
Has the Negro girl proved herself worthy of the intellectual advantages which have been given her? What is your answer when I tell you that Negro women stand at the helm of outstanding enterprises; such are: Nannie Borroughs — Charlotte Hawkins Brown; they are proprietors of business — we recall Madam Walker and Annie Malone; they are doing excellent work in the field of Medicine, Literary Art, Painting and Music. Of that large group let us mention Mary Church Terrell and Jessie Fauset; Hazel Harrison, Caterina Jarbors and Marian Anderson as beacon lights. One very outstanding woman is a banner. Others are leaders in Politics.
You could not give me toys in those bleak days; So when my playmates proudly boasted theirs, You caught me to the shelter of your arms, And taught me how to laugh away my tears.
It is cruel for a woman with her man gone, An' the younguns allus hungry, an' winter comin' on.
Compassionate the mountains rise Dim with the wistful dimness of old eyes That, having looked on life time out of mind, Know that the simple gift of being kind Is greater than all the wisdom of the wise.
Here lies a spendthrift who believed That only those who spend may keep; Who scattered seeds, yet never grieved Because a stranger came to reap.
Porgy lived in the Golden Age. Not the Golden Age of a remote and legendary past; nor yet the chimerical era treasured by every man past middle life, that never existed except in the heart of youth; but an age when men, not yet old, were boys in an ancient, beautiful city that time had forgotten before it destroyed.
The game of life is the game of boomerangs. Our thoughts, deeds and words return to us sooner or later, with astounding accuracy.
My life had not been wholly uneventful; I had been of an observant turn of mind from my youth.
The place of my birth and the conditions under which I was born are matters over which, of course, I had no control.