“I think the other reason, and perhaps the most important reason I am throwing these suggestions out to you tonight, is that in this country, every black man born in this country, until this present moment is born into country, which assures him, in as many ways as it can find, that he is not worth the dirt he walks on. Every negro boy and every negro girl born in this country, until this very moment undergoes the agony of trying to find in the body politic, in the body social, outside himself or herself some image of himself of herself which is not demeaning. Now, many indeed have survived, and at an incalculable cost. Many more have perished and are perishing every day. If you tell a child, and do your best to prove to the child that he is not worth life, it is entirely possible that sooner or later the child begins to believe it.”

- James Baldwin (June, 1963)