Maintaining Sanity in the Midst of Unrelenting Oppression: The Continuing Saga of People of African Descent in America

When asked by the publisher of this manuscript to write a brief statement for the cover of this book, we were immediately driven to the second stanza of "Lift Every Voice and Sing" by James Weldon Johnson and J.R. Rosamond Johnson.

The second stanza says,

Stony the road we trod

Bitter the chastening rod

Felt in the days when hope unborn had died

Yet with a steady beat

Have not our weary feet

Come to the place for which our fathers sighed?

We have come over a way that with tears has been watered

We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered

Out from the gloomy past

Till now we stand at last

Where the white gleam of our bright star is cast

To our sisters and brothers, keep praying, keep singing, and keep going to safe places to cry! Our sanity demands.