“As my Angel Mother used to say, some of us are Christian folks and some are vagabonds, but all of us are people.” —Roland Hayes

—from Angel Mo and Her Son, by McKinley Helm

(By permission of Little Brown & Company and Atlantic Monthly Press)

“There are thieves and murderers and wife-beaters among my people. There are also geniuses and saints and many Negroes who walk down God’s pathway. In other words, Negroes are human beings with exactly the same faults and virtues as members of the other races.”

—from His Eye Is on the Sparrow, by Ethel Waters

(By permission of Doubleday & Company)