“I want to see lithe Negro girls,
Etched dark against the sky
While sunset lingers. . . .

I want to hear the chanting
Around a heathen fire
Of a strange black race. . . .

I want to feel the surging
Of my sad people’s soul
Hidden by a minstrel-smile.”

—Gwendolyn Bennet, a poem from the 1930s; quoted in A People’s History of the United States; 1492-Present by Howard Zinn, 1999.