African-American Archive The History of the Black Experience in Documents

A SWEEPING COLLECTION OF FIRST-PERSON ACCOUNTS, LANDMARK DOCUMENTS AND CELEBRATED LITERARY WORKS CHRONICLING THE HISTORY OF AFRICAN AMERICA O! had I the ability, and could I reach the nation's ear, I would, to-day, pour out a fiery stream of biting ridicule, blasting reproach, withering sarcasm, and stern rebuke. For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need to storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake. The feeling of the nations must be quickened; the conscience of the nation must be roused; the propriety of the nation must be startled; the hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed; and its crimes against God and man must be proclaimed and denounced. What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciations of tyrants, brass fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade, and solemnity, are, to him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy - a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation on earth guilty of practices, more shocking and bloody, than are the people of these United States, at this very hour. (From Frederick Douglass's What to the Slave is the Fourth of July? Speech, delivered on July 4th, 1852, in Rochester, New York) Next time I go to a movie and see a picture of a little ordinary girl become a great star, I'll believe it. And whenever I hear my wife read fairy tales to my little boy, I'll listen. I know that dreams do come true. I know because I am now playing with the Brooklyn Dodgers in the big leagues!.Last Thursday, Mr. Rickey called me to his office. He said: "Jackie you're a big leaguer now. You're going to play with the Dodgers and we're announcing it to the world today." I walked out of his office in a trance. . When the umpire said: "Play ball!" I finally started thinking baseball. I finally realized that I was a member of the Brooklyn Dodgers; that I had made the big leagues. . I will never stop trying. I hope that I'll get better and better every day and help bring a pennant and world series to Brooklyn. Being up here is absolutely wonderful. That's why I'm a believer in fairy tales now. You see, it actually happened to me. (Jackie Robinson, writing in the Pittsburgh courier the day after breaking Major League Baseball's color barrier in 1947) MAYA ANGELOU - FREDERICK DOUGLASS - RALPH ELLISON - MUHAMMAD ALI - STANLEY CROUCH - MALCOM X - PUBLIC ENEMY - MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR. - BARBARA JORDAN - STOKELY CARMICHAEL - LANGSTON HUGHES - W.E.B. DUBOIS - HENRY LOUIS GATES, JR. - CORNEL WEST - ABRAHAM LINCOLN - ALEX HALEY - TONI MORRISONWright, Kai is the author of 'African-American Archive The History of the Black Experience in Documents', published 2001 under ISBN 9781579121570 and ISBN 1579121578.