Black Donald

“ A bridle-path lay before her, leading from the fording place through a deep wood. That path attracted her; she followed it, charmed alike by the solitude of the wood, the novelty of the scene and her own sense of freedom. But one thought was given to the story of Black Donald, and that was a reassuring one:
"If Black Donald is a mail robber, then this little bridle-path is far enough off his beat." ”

“ A man is never better than when he has the humblest sense of himself: he is never so unlike the spirit of Evil as when his pride is utterly vanished. You linger, looking upon the stream of fading sunlight that plays across the rapids, and down into the shadow of the depths below, lit up with their clouds of spray;—yet farther down, your sight swims upon the black eddying masses, with white ribbons streaming across their glassy surface ”

“ All the lax gayety of Saratoga palls on the appetite; even the magnificent shores of Lake George, though stirring your spirit to an insensible wonder and love, do not cheat you into a trance that lingers. In vain the sun blazons every isle, and lights every shaded cove, and at evening stretches the Black Mountain in giant slumber on the waters. ”

“ I try to bring back the image that belonged to the lingering bituminous flame, but with my eyes on that dark blower—how can I?
It is the black curtain of destiny which drops down before our brightest dreams. How often the phantoms of joy regale us, and dance before us—golden-winged, angel-faced, heart-warming, and make an Elysium in which the dreaming soul bathes and feels translated to another existence; and then—sudden as night, or a cloud—a word, a step, a thought, a memory will chase them away like scared deer vanishing over a gray horizon of moor-land! ”

“ Altogether you grow into a liking of the country: your boyish spirit loves its fresh, bracing air, and the sparkles of dew that at sunrise cover the hills with diamonds; and the wild river, with its black-topped, loitering pools; and the shaggy mists that lie in the nights of early autumn like unravelled clouds, lost upon the meadow. You love the hills, climbing green and grand to the skies, or stretching away in distance their soft, blue, smoky caps, like the sweet, half-faded memories of the years behind you. ”

“ No challenge can match the heart and fight and spirit of America. We will not fail. Our country will thrive and prosper again.
We stand at the birth of a new millennium, ready to unlock the mysteries of space, to free the Earth from the miseries of disease and to harness the energies, industries and technologies of tomorrow. A new national pride will stir our souls, lift our sights and heal our divisions. It's time to remember that old wisdom our soldiers will never forget, that whether we are black, or brown, or white, we all bleed the same red blood of patriots. ”

“ And if, some or all of those wild vagaries that grow on your fancy at such an hour, you could whisper into listening, because loving ears—ears not tired with listening, because it is you who whisper—ears ever indulgent because eager to praise; and if your darkest fancies were lit up, not merely with bright wood fire, but with a ringing laugh of that sweet face turned up in fond rebuke—how far better than to be waxing black and sour over pestilential humors—alone—your very dog asleep. ”

“ A thin, frail man; strong no ways, but in courage, and in brain; with broad brows—black cap—locks floating gray from under it, in careless whirls that shook as he talked; an eye like a falcon’s that flashed the light of twenty years, when sixty were on his shoulders ”

“ And the Evil One took her at her word, appearing in the guise of a presentable young man who arranged her ruffs
“—to her so great contentation and liking, that she became enamored with him. The young man kissed her, in the doing whereof he writhed her neck in sunder, so she died miserably; her body being straightwaies changed into blue and black colors, most ugglesome to behold, and her face most deformed and fearful to look upon. ”

“ It is certain, moreover, that in the immediate service of either Prince or King, he went to the wars—as every young man of high spirit in England yearned to do, when war was so great a part of the business of life, and when the Black Prince was galloping in armor and in victory over the fields of Guienne. But it was a bad excursion the poet hit upon; he went when disaster attended the English forces; he was taken prisoner, and though ransomed shortly thereafter—as the record shows—it is uncertain when he returned; uncertain if he did not linger for years among the vineyards of France ”

“ As we celebrate Historically Black Colleges and Universities Week, we recognize the extraordinary contributions that Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) have made, and continue to make, to the general welfare and prosperity of our country. Established by visionary leaders, America's HBCUs have long played an integral role in our Nation's history, providing Black Americans opportunities to learn and achieve their dreams. ”

“ HBCUs formed to overcome such discrimination and prove to the Nation that all students deserve a high quality education, and that all Americans can rise to great heights if given the opportunity. For more than 150 years, HBCUs have produced some of our Nation's leaders in business, government, academia, and the military, and they have helped create a thriving and important Black middle class. Today, they continue to provide a rigorous education to students, who are often from low income backgrounds, who seek to advance themselves and give back to their Nation. ”

“ He died in the first decade of that fifteenth century on which we open our British march to-day; and, at the outset, I call attention to a little nest of dates, which from their lying so close together, can be easily kept in mind. Richard II. son of the Black Prince, died—a disgraced prisoner—in 1400. John of Gaunt, his uncle, friend of Chaucer, died the previous year: while Chaucer, Froissart and John Gower all died in less than ten years thereafter; thus, the century opens with a group of great deaths. ”

“ We the darker ones come even now not altogether empty-handed: there are to-day no truer exponents of the pure human spirit of the Declaration of Independence than the American Negroes; there is no true American music but the wild sweet melodies of the Negro slave; the American fairy tales and folk-lore are Indian and African; and, all in all, we black men seem the sole oasis of simple faith and reverence in a dusty desert of dollars and smartness. Will America be poorer if she replace her brutal dyspeptic blundering with light-hearted but determined Negro humility? ”

“ Now, under the elevating and cherishing influence of the American Anti-slavery Society, the colored race, like the white, furnishes Corinthian capitals for the noblest temples. Aroused by the American Anti-slavery Society, the very white men who had forgotten and denied the claim of the black man to the rights of humanity, now thunder that claim at every gate, from cottage to capitol, from school-house to university, from the railroad carriage to the house of God. He has a place at their firesides, a place in their hearts—the man whom they once cruelly hated for his color. ”

“ Why is it that when
even so talented a negro as Frederick Douglass who, curiously enough, in the estimation of
Senator Ingalls, is “greater by his Caucasian reënforcement than by his African blood,” is to
be provided for, he is given either an office in a disfranchised community in the United States
or a mission to a black Republic? How much are negro lawyers and doctors at the North
patronized by white clients or patients? Are blacks freely admitted there to the various social
and religious organizations that effect so much for this world and the next? ”

“ For the righting of our wrongs we must look to the negroes in those States where they hold the balance of power—in Ohio, Indiana, Connecticut, New Jersey, and others. And think what an element we are destined to form in the body politic! In fifty years we shall be twenty-five millions; next century we shall be fifty millions. Not a drop of our blood is lost to us—the whites take care of that. If you haven’t got but a sixteenth part of black blood, you’re a negro all right. ”

“ Sir, the gentleman has far less confidence in the white race than I have, if he is so timid in regard to negro competition. Does he really suppose that black men are so far superior to white men that four millions of them can elect a President of their own race against the wishes of thirty millions of ours? ”

“ For the Negro everywhere discriminated against, segregated and shunned, mobbed and murdered—he it is whose melodies are on all our lips, and whose rhythms impel our marching feet in a ‘war for democracy.’ The irresistible music that wells up from this sunny and unresentful people is hummed and whistled, danced to and marched to, laughed over and wept over, by high and low and rich and poor throughout the land. The downtrodden black man whose patient religious faith has kept his heart still unembittered, is fast becoming the singing voice of all America. ”

“ This week, we will also host the Annual White House Historically Black College and Universities Summit to provide a forum for HBCU presidents, faculty members, students, government partners, and other stakeholders to address the priorities set forth in my Executive Order to Promote Excellence and Innovation at Historically Black Colleges and Universities, signed February 28, 2017. ”

“ The Negro’s agitation for the right to vote has made any step toward disfranchising the poor white unthinkable, for the white vote is needed to help disfranchise the blacks; the black man is pounding open the doors of exclusive trade guilds; for how can unions exclude whites when Negro competition can break a steel strike? The Negro is making America and the world acknowledge democracy as feasible and desirable for all white folk, for only in this way do they see any possibility of defending their world wide fear of yellow, brown and black folk. ”

“ In a word, Gordon hadn't grasped this fundamental truth—which the world may just as well accept first as last—that, no matter how the negro race may predominate in numbers, or grow in wealth, or develop in intelligence, the white man never will be ruled by the black man. ”

“ The self-forgetfulness, the undaunted heroism, and the great endurance of the negro, as exhibited that day, created a new chapter in American history for the black man. No negro hater will ever again dare to urge the withholding of our rights upon the plea that we will not fight.
The stale and stereotyped falsehood that the blacks are wanting in patriotism, was nailed to the counter as base coin, on the banks of the Mississippi. ”

“ In view of the emphasis which their platform put upon the negro, Douglas thought that consistency required the substitution of the word "Black" for "National." The Democratic party, on the other hand, had no sympathy with those who believed in making the negro the social and political equal of the white man. "Our people are a white people; our State is a white State; and we mean to preserve the race pure, without any mixture with the negro. ”

“ He knows and you know that the question is not settled, and that his ill-timed experiment to settle it has made it worse than it ever was before.
And now let me say a few words in regard to Douglas's great hobby of negro equality. He thinks—he says at least—that the Republican party is in favor of allowing whites and blacks to intermarry, and that a man can't be a good Republican unless he is willing to elevate black men to office and to associate with them on terms of perfect equality. ”

“ This has not been done but so far as my studies have gone I have been surprised at the comparatively small amount of change in law and government which the overthrow of Negro rule brought about. There were sharp and often hurtful economies introduced, marking the return of property to power, there was a sweeping change in officials but the main body of Reconstruction legislation stood.
There is no doubt but that the thirst of the black man for knowledge—a thirst which has been too persistent and durable to be mere curiosity or whim—gave birth to the public free school system of the South. ”

“ A. Conditions in United States Affecting NOI What conditions prevail in the United States which allow this unusual organization its present-day appeal and notoriety? Why is the NOI seemingly more important today than at any time in its history?
Prominent Negro scholars point to a new assertive mood, frequently called "Black Nationalism," rising among the Negroes in this country. But Negro leaders differ in their interpretation and use to be made of this mood. ”

“ For many years the Negro has been the football of American politics. Kicked from pillar to post, he goes begging, hat in hand, from a Republican convention to a Democratic one. Always is he asking some one else to do something for him. Always is he begging, pleading, demanding or threatening. In all these cases his dependence is on the good will, sense of justice or gratitude of the other fellow. And in none of these cases is the political reaction of the other fellow within the control of the Negro. ”

“ They are ignorant of the world about them, of modern economic organization, of the function of government, of individual worth and possibilities,—of nearly all those things which slavery in self-defence had to keep them from learning. Much that the white boy imbibes from his earliest social atmosphere forms the puzzling problems of the black boy's mature years. America is not another word for Opportunity to all her sons. ”